Stewart McDonald on Russia and 'good friends with England' doctrine

TRY this for irony: if it wasn’t for Alex Salmond’s Russia Today show, the SNP may never have forged the deep bonds which exist between the party and Ukraine’s government.

As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches, SNP MP Stewart McDonald, who has been decorated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government for services to Ukraine, talked to The Herald on Sunday about just how deep those links between Edinburgh and Kyiv go, how the war shaped SNP defence policy, and the way Salmond’s flirtation with Kremlin media set off a remarkable chain of events.

McDonald was the SNP’s Westminster defence spokesman until party turmoil saw Ian Blackford replaced as Commons leader by Stephen Flynn. McDonald, who is close to Nicola Sturgeon, stepped down after Blackford’s departure.

Alex Salmond

McDonald is seen as ‘Ukraine’s best friend’ in Scotland. Russian spies have even hacked him – with former diplomat Craig Murray claiming he has now obtained McDonald’s emails and vows to publish them. Police Scotland says it has received a report and is assessing it. 

However, it was Alex Salmond who set him on his path toward Ukraine.

After he became defence spokesman in 2017, Salmond’s RT show was launched. “An appalling error of judgment,” he says. McDonald and Stephen Gethins, then foreign affairs spokesman, held a crisis meeting.

“We were horrified. How could we handle the potential reputational damage? We needed to do some quick outreach to European embassies. We split them up – ‘you do these, and I’ll do those’.” McDonald got the Ukrainian ambassador role.

“We were reinforcing that this was Salmond’s decision. Obviously the First Minister came out against that decision in robust terms. We wanted to put distance between that show and the SNP, and assure the international community that the decision in no way was reflective of us. I relayed that message to the Ukrainian ambassador. She appreciated it.”

On the frontline

AT the time, Putin had already annexed Crimea and backed armed separatists in eastern Ukraine, starting the 2014 Donbas war. Kyiv was preparing for Russian escalation.

At the meeting, the ambassador invited McDonald to Ukraine “to witness Russian aggression. That’s how it started”. He got close to the frontline, “two kilometres from Russian-occupied territory”. He says: “You don’t go to a place like that and come away unchanged. It was horrendous. Around one million Ukrainians were already internally displaced.” The Donbas war claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Two Ukrainian MPs accompanied him. They remain close friends today. “They told me, ‘this isn’t the end, Putin wants more, the West needs to know’. This wasn’t an ordinary parliamentary visit where you go home and write a letter to ministers. I had to stay involved.”

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After Foreign Office debriefings, he asked the Ukrainian MPs “what I could do”, adding: “ They wanted champions for Ukraine, its democracy, its place in Europe, Nato, and the broader Western order. They said, ‘just talk about Ukraine’.”

The Donbas conflict was then dubbed “Europe’s forgotten war”, so McDonald decided: “The best thing I could do was use my platform to raise awareness that this war was happening and Ukrainians keep telling us it’ll only get worse.”

Ukraine invasion

BY late 2021, as Russia began building up troops on Ukraine’s border, McDonald was receiving briefings from the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office. He returned to Ukraine two weeks before war broke out in February 2022. Ukrainian MPs, says McDonald, “were all raising the alarm, saying this will happen. We need help now. We need equipment. We need support”.

Ahead of the invasion, McDonald flew to an emergency meeting of Joint Expeditionary Force countries, comprising Britain and Baltic and Nordic nations, about Ukraine, hosted by UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace, at Belvoir Castle. “The intensity and seriousness was building,” he says.

While he waited at an RAF base for a helicopter, Putin was giving his infamous speech live on TV, claiming Ukraine had no right to exist. Officials wanted a channel with live translation. “I remember some black humour where I said ‘Russia Today will have it’.”

The day before the invasion, McDonald met with Liz Truss, then foreign secretary. “The language from her and Ben Wallace was ‘this is days away’. Then in the morning it happened. I felt horrible, just horrible.”

Panic in Donbas

MCDONALD says he knew Ukraine would fight, but privately, like many, he had little hope of Russia being held back. He began phoning his Ukrainian friends, including an MP he had travelled with to the Donbas frontline. “As I called him he was getting into his car to flee, I could hear his kids panicking in the background,” he explains. “It was very emotional. I’m trying not to cry right now talking about it. It takes a lot to make me cry. I’m that cynical.

“My friend was saying ‘we need a no-fly zone, why won’t [the West] support that’.” Although McDonald backs sending all the military aid Ukraine needs – including fighter jets – he remains opposed to a no-fly zone, fearing escalation to war between Nato and Russia. Nicola Sturgeon previously said Nato shouldn’t rule out a no-fly zone.

“I’ve never felt so weak-kneed saying why we couldn’t support a no-fly zone, although I knew it was the right thing to do, and I knew my Ukrainian friends understood that, but of course they still had to advocate for it.”

McDonald set up a WhatsApp group bringing UK and Ukrainian MPs together. “I just tried to make myself as useful as possible.” 

His work for Ukraine gained him the nation’s Order of Merit, the highest accolade for foreigners.

Escape to Scotland

A GLASGOW constituent was trapped in Kharkiv with his Ukrainian wife and child. “I called him and I could hear missiles outside.” McDonald asked his friends, including the local Ukrainian MP, to help the family flee. On the second attempt they escaped. Last September, McDonald travelled to Ukraine lending moral support to his friends in Kyiv’s parliament.

McDonald helped Sturgeon formulate her positioning on Ukraine. Many were surprised by the hardline she took against Russia, and some – later branded “Putin’s useful Scottish idiots” – condemned the SNP’s pro-Nato line.

“I wasn’t surprised by her position at all. How can anybody look at what’s happened and not see there’s a right and wrong side. 

“One country invaded the sovereign territory of another in gross violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.” Anyone who can’t see that, he says, “has some pretty f****d up thinking. The First Minister’s instincts were spot on.”

He and Sturgeon were also discussing “where this sits for us in our broader thinking around geopolitics and security … Our position was that [the West] should support Ukraine militarily, economically and politically, and give Ukraine everything it needs to defend itself.”

Refugee crisis

MCDONALD says he was “in lockstep” with both Truss and Wallace over support for Ukraine, but differed on the Ukrainian refugee policy. London was criticised for slowing refugees coming to Britain by insisting on visas.

“The UK let itself down,” McDonald adds. “It created an unnecessarily cumbersome and bureaucratic scheme. The whole idea that we can’t just let all these people who want to come, come, because the system might get exploited, was bullshit. Ireland, Poland, Latvia or France didn’t have that concern. [London] should have been much more generous.”

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Edinburgh created the “super-sponsor scheme” to get Ukrainians into Scotland quickly. “That’s an example of us thinking ‘how does the Scottish Government’s devolved authority make a meaningful contribution to the war’. It was a stroke of genius. Her instincts were right again. Of course, we can discuss how successful it’s been in practice.”

Many refugees are housed on cruise ships and there are concerns around education and healthcare. Despite these problems, “it was the right thing to do”, says McDonald, adding: “We wanted people here as swiftly as possible. We’ve shown political and humanitarian generosity.” Nations like Estonia also housed Ukrainians on cruise ships.

Suggestions of £1 million in Scottish aid arose. McDonald told Sturgeon “that’s not enough, it must be far more. We ended up with about £4m in support”. He also set up calls between Sturgeon and Ukrainian MPs. “It really made a difference. They felt that even though we were a devolved government we were doing the right thing.”

‘Useful idiots’

AS for Putin’s “useful idiots” within the Yes movement who attacked the pro-Nato position, McDonald says: “They’re entitled to their views, but they’re in a minority and just fundamentally wrong. They misunderstand Scottish public opinion.” Scottish polls show support for Nato at over 80 per cent.

The war, McDonald says, can only end “with every Russian troop out of Ukraine, and Ukraine in the EU and Nato”. As for Russia, “there should be an international tribunal – starting with the crime of aggression”.

McDonald admits that within the SNP, “defence, security and geopolitical issues were never easy for us”, adding: “We had a big problem around Nato. We’d the right position – that Scotland should be in Nato if independent – but we’d never fleshed out what that meant.

SNP MP Stewart McDonald says the war can only end 'with every Russian troop out of Ukraine, and Ukraine in the EU and Nato' (Image: Newsquest)

“We would talk to international partners about Scottish independence and – I don’t want to say they didn’t trust us – but there was always a sense of ‘you say that, but being in Nato means something, it’s a burden-sharing alliance’. So I had to work out what Scottish membership of Nato looked like. What could Scotland bring to the table, not just in terms of spending X on defence, but how to become a value added partner.”

Scotland can’t “provide mass like America”. Other small nations like Denmark or Estonia provide expertise on special forces or cyber warfare. McDonald’s policy was for Scotland to work in areas like military medicine as a unique contribution.

Supporting Nato 

MCDONALD says he backed Nato so prominently – long before the invasion – as the SNP “just wasn’t convincing, domestically or internationally, that our commitment to Nato was solid and we’d actually thought it through”. 

After the party backed Nato membership in 2012, “we almost kind of tried to ... I don’t want to say disown it, as that’s not quite what we did, but we almost put it away, never thought of it again. So, in conversations, I was told ‘are you willing to meet your commitments, will you share the burden?’. So I deliberately went out of my way to ensure our Nato policy meant something”.

But how does the SNP square Nato membership with Trident removal? Wouldn’t that throw Nato into disarray? McDonald believes he can square the circle. “This would be our first big test as an independent country, a new security actor. The way we handle that will affect everything else we want to do – negotiations with the rest of the UK, EU recognition, everything.”

The argument that many other Nato nations don’t have nuclear bases, while true, remains “one of the least sophisticated arguments”, he says. Rather, McDonald’s position is that “it’s not in the UK Government’s interests, following independence, to host its nuclear capability, which underwrites its UN Security Council seat, within another country’s sovereign territory, no matter how close and friendly that country might be”. That negotiating position, he claims, can “resolve” the problem.

“One of the key pillars of an independent Scotland’s defence and security posture, our foreign policy doctrine, is our relationship with the rest of the UK. What underpins that should be a ‘good neighbour’ doctrine. What’s become clear to me is that in all these other states’ capitals, although London is pretty unpopular at the minute, is it’s still a valued partner, especially in security terms. If London’s happy then chances are the rest of them will be happy.”

So “confidence-building” with London is key to early-stage independence. That means “nothing that would compromise the safety and security” of Trident, or “undermine” Nato, “an alliance we want to be part of”. He envisions the UN underwriting treaties for Trident’s removal. “As long as we respect each other’s interests we’ll handle this process and keep disruption to a minimum.”

McDonald doesn’t believe a treaty whereby Faslane is rented to London is workable. It probably wouldn’t get through Holyrood and would involve leasing huge swathes of Scotland’s western seaboard so the UK had unfettered access to bases. “It’s not realistic.”

English border?

BUT is a border with England realistic, which would happen if Scotland rejoins Europe? McDonald believes if the “good neighbour” doctrine is applied, and negotiations are respectful, then any border can be “soft as possible”.

So, if McDonald had all these great policies, why did he stand down? After Stephen Flynn replaced Ian Blackford as Commons leader, McDonald was asked to stay on as defence spokesman. However, they differed on how the job should be done. “He’s entitled to have a defence spokesman who’s bought into the way he thinks – I’m entitled to say how I think it’s best done and if you take a different view then appoint someone else.” 

McDonald says there’s “nobody better placed to take over” than his successor Dave Doogan.

So, is the defence policy he created at risk? Definitely not, McDonald says. The difference wasn’t about policy but procedure. And why did Blackford quit? “Stephen wanted to run for leader. He’s entitled to do that. I tried to convince Ian not to go.”

But isn’t the SNP’s defence policy just all talk unless Scotland becomes independent? How will that happen? McDonald opposes the “de facto referendum” route suggested by Sturgeon. He insists this doesn’t put him at odds with her as she has passed the decision on any route map to a special SNP conference.

Indyref2 strategy

HE believes the de facto plan “tries to solve the problem of how we deal with our own impatience: how we get a vote as quickly as possible. That’s the wrong way to look at it”. The task should be “how do we grow support for independence”. 

It currently fluctuates around 50%. McDonald says he has spoken to a respected political scientist who says data shows Scotland even “more polarised” than Northern Ireland. “That struck me. I thought, ‘oh, f***’.”

He believes polarisation can be broken, and progress made towards another referendum, only through good government by the SNP. “Firstly, a government people feel confident in, with good public services, and secondly, an independence prospectus that fundamentally answers anxieties and ambitions around economics.”

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Arguments around denial of democracy and Brexit flouting the will of Scottish voters “are really strong, and we should make them, but they haven’t been the knockout we thought. You get real traction talking about economic fairness, a better society. That’s where the argument will be won”. 

McDonald says: “On living standards, Britain falls behind our Western European counterparts on almost every measurement.” He feels this presents “the room to bring No voters over in this deeply polarised society, and draw support from the union side to independence”. Just “huffing and puffing about Section 35” isn’t enough.

Even if the SNP won a de facto referendum at an election, Westminster has no obligation to grant another vote due to “raw state power”, McDonald points out. 

It could also lead to increased “rancour” if some in the Yes movement used a de facto win to call for a “unilateral declaration of independence”. Anything smacking of illegitimacy won’t “find international favour”. Instead, lifting independence support into the high 50s or even 60% would make it impossible for Westminster to refuse another vote. 

Polls fluctuate but McDonald says there is majority support for another referendum, but little backing for the de facto route.

Internal chaos

HOWEVER with the SNP under intense criticism right now, how will it “govern its way to independence”? McDonald, who supports trans rights, admits chaos around gender legislation caused problems and “blindsided” the government.

But he adds: “Despite the troubles we have at the moment, our party is popular, our government is more trusted that the UK Government. Our leader remains enormously popular.”

Recent polls saw support for the SNP, Sturgeon and independence drop, but McDonald says: “The numbers have only come down slightly and that’s after 16 years in government. It’s unprecedented. There are undoubtedly challenges, the handling of the gender recognition legislation has been enormously emotive and divisive, but we can arrest that.

“It’s difficult, we’re all human. We get things wrong from time to time but we can navigate our way through.”

It’s a problem, McDonald says, that “the constitution dominates everything. We cannot move forward. To clear the air, the constitutional question needs settling”.

Opposition parties need to accept “they’ve a role helping Scotland move beyond stasis where everything is viewed through the prism of the constitution. This is helping nobody”.

Despite the pressure on Sturgeon, McDonald doesn’t believe she’ll quit. “She has phenomenal, unmatched, personal and political resilience. These times are tough but we’re not seeing the sun set on Nicola Sturgeon.”