ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:             Now Britain and the other G7 countries agreed to step up sanctions against Russia this weekend.  They’re trying to put pressure on the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to take a step back over Ukraine where tensions have been rising for weeks now and there are fears that Russia may be planning to invade the eastern part of that country.  Well will the sanctions have any effect on President Putin and might they have a negative impact on the West?  Well let’s say a very good morning to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague joins me now from North Yorkshire. Mr Hague, first of all I wanted to ask you about the sad events, the incident in Kandahar that has claimed the lives of five British service personnel, is there anything more you can tell us about that?

WILLIAM HAGUE: I don't think I have anything more to tell you than you will already have heard.  This appears to have been a tragic accident although it is still being investigated.  It’s a reminder of the work that our troops still do in Afghanistan, of course at the end of this year we will come to an end of a combat role or having our troops there in any significant numbers but the work they do is still dangerous, it is still very valuable in Afghanistan.  There has just been a very important and peacefully conducted presidential election in Afghanistan which augers well for the future Afghanistan so I don’t have any more news for you than that but these personnel are doing, as ever, outstanding work for the people of this country and for our national security and indeed for the people of Afghanistan.

DM: But there were claims, as so often in these situations, from Taliban sources that they shot it down, can you definitively tell us that was not the case?

WILLIAM HAGUE: There have been those claims, it’s not unusual for the Taliban to make those claims even when they haven’t taken part in any action.  You’ll have heard that the military commandos on the ground say that it appears to have been an accident, I can’t add to that at the moment but they are continuing to investigate it and the Taliban claims often don’t correspond at all to what has really happened on the ground. 

DM: And anything more about the mission they were on? 

WILLIAM HAGUE: No, I don’t have any additional information for you.  As I said, British troops have been doing a very good and are continuing to do an outstanding job in recent months, progressively handing over to the Afghan National Security forces who now conduct most security operations in Afghanistan on their own and have been acquitting themselves extremely well in recent months and so that work of helping to train the Afghans, of mentoring the Afghans so that Afghanistan can look after its own security in future – and that has always been our objective – has been continuing in recent months and British troops continue to do a very good job of it as well as preparing of course the equipment and the withdrawal of personnel and equipment from the British Army back to bases here in the UK. 

DM: Okay, thanks for that Foreign Secretary, let’s get on to Ukraine and what a dangerous situation is developing there with the OSC observers taken hostage, sanctions, more sanctions coming from the West and the interim Ukrainian authorities talking about World War Three, is that going too far or is there a way that this could really spark something very bad?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well it continues to be an escalating crisis, let’s put it that way.  Of course there were some good signs ten days ago when an agreement was made in Geneva including with Russia to help stabilise the situation, to de-escalate, to encourage illegal occupations of buildings in Eastern Ukraine to come to an end.  Since then the Ukrainian government have done a number of things to honour their agreement, they’ve drafted an amnesty law, they have been collecting in illegally held weapons, they have been supporting the international observers but unfortunately Russia has not done anything in that period that we can discern to help de-escalate and to fulfil the Geneva agreement.  On the contrary, they are now conducting large scale military exercises on the eastern borders of Ukraine and refusing to call on those occupying buildings in eastern Ukraine to withdraw from them so in those circumstances – and you just heard President Obama saying we will go ahead with additional sanctions, the cost to Russia will rise, we will always keep the diplomatic doors fully open and we will work with Russia on this but if they won’t work with the rest of the world then the cost to them will rise and we are working on those additional sanctions now.

DM: Well let me push you on that, what areas are you looking at?  The existing sanctions have had zero effect, how will these have more bite? 

WILLIAM HAGUE:  Well these are most likely to be – and we are still discussing them as course with other countries – they are likely to be an extension of existing sanctions, on the travel bans and asset freezes on individuals.  The more names we add to that list the more they do bite in the Russian economy, but we are also working on more far-reaching measures of economic, trade and financial sanctions.  Of course we’ve always hope, for our sake, for Europe’s sake, for America’s sake, as well as for Russia’s sake, that we don’t have to go ahead with those things.  We want world trade to expand and improve but we will go ahead with them if necessary, if Russia continues to escalate this crisis we will calculate them in a way that has a maximum effect on the Russian economy and a minimum effect on our own economies in the European Union.  So the world on those is going on.

DM: Are you saying about those trade sanctions that they are for the future, they are not what we are going to hear about tomorrow? 

WILLIAM HAGUE: I am saying that those are for the future, yes.  I am saying that what we will hear about in the coming days, what we will agree in the coming days is an expansion of existing sanctions, of the measures against individuals or entities in Russia and of course what Russia really has to worry about here, even if they pretend not to be concerned about these sanctions, is the long term effect on the Russian economy of this whole situation.  Already we have seen more than $60 billion of capital flight out of Russia so far this year and serious falls in the Russian stock market so no one should underestimate the impact on Russia and Russia’s own interests of continued escalation of this crisis.    

DM: But as you say there, Foreign Secretary, you talk about the mutually beneficial economic effects of trade, if there are those kind of sanctions they rebound as well, they hurt Europe and the United States but that’s a price worth paying is it? 

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well it would be a price worth paying if this situation continues to deteriorate, yes it would and the European Commission has done a lot of work on this already so that all European nations would share in the sacrifices that would be involved.  The United States of course is ready to join in those measures, there would be some price to pay for this country and our allies of such measures but there is a huge price to pay for allowing aggressive bullying behaviour to continue, for a European nation invading another European nation as has already happened in Crimea, breaking all aspects of international law in that regard, there is a huge price to pay for not standing up to that.  History teaches us that we do have to stand up to such bullying behaviour from one state on to another, so we will keep talking to Russia, I spoke to the Russian Foreign Minister a few days ago to suggest measures they could take to de-escalate, we will keep those diplomatic channels open but if Russia doesn’t reciprocate we will take additional measures. 

DM: One of the immediate sticking points, the OSCE, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the observers who have been taken hostage, of course Russia is a member of the OSCE, if they are not released unharmed very quickly what happens?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well if they are not released unharmed there will be further evidence of Russia’s destabilisation and refusal to join in de-escalating the situation.  Now Russia has said that they will do their best to secure the release of those monitors, I understand there is going to be a meeting in Ukraine in the coming hours.  They should be released immediately and unconditionally, these are international observers whose work is in the interests of the security of all nations, all European nations including Russia and so we do look to Russia to assist with their release and to lobby and persuade and insist that those groups who have held the OSC monitors that they should be released immediately.

DM: Can I just turn your mind to domestic politics, no doubt looking at the latest polling ahead of the European Elections with UKIP it seems on top of the pile and the Conservatives sitting rather lamely in third place.  Your colleague Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, was saying this morning on the Marr Show that you have got to engage with UKIP, what form should that engagement take?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well I think we have to be clear in these European elections that there are already some UKIP Members of the European Parliament.  Their record is not a good one, their attendance and their achievements for this country are not good at all when you compare for instance to what Conservative Members of the European Parliament achieve but we also of course have to persuade people that want to vote for any other party, including any fringe parties, we have to persuade them that in the coming general election, which is only a year away, they will have at the end of that either David Cameron as Prime Minister with the long term economic plan and the rescuing of this country’s economy that is taking place or Ed Miliband and back to what happened several years ago under Labour and people need to make that choice, particularly in the general election that takes place next year.

DM: You know what’s going to break out in your party the day after those elections when UKIP finish top or a close second, there’s going to be panic in some quarters of the Conservative party. What plans are you and Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne making to deal with that as the demands for red lines, for controls, for immediate controls over migration from within the European Union are made?  Are you just going to ignore that or engage with those within your own party?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well we’ve set our course on Europe and we will stick to that through these elections and beyond these elections.  The whole Conservative party has united behind holding a referendum under a Conservative government in the next parliament by the end of 2017 after negotiating an improved relationship for this country with the European Union.  We will absolutely stick to that policy and it is another of the choices that people will make at the elections, all elections over the coming year, a referendum under a Conservative government or no referendum under a Labour government so UKIP are not in a position to deny people a referendum, it is only with David Cameron as Prime Minister and a Conservative government that there will be a referendum.

DM: Yes, but there are those within your own party who want to know now before that referendum, what are the powers, what precisely are the powers that you want to red card, what are the laws you want to repeal, what do you intend to do about migration from within the European Union? 

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well we have given some examples of what we will do.  For instance, you mention the red card, this is the idea that I put forward of national parliaments having a red card if enough of them act together to say that they can stop a European directive, a European piece of legislation and the Prime Minister has set out our ambition to create a European Union that is more competitive, more flexible, more democratically accountable.  We are getting a very good hearing for those ideas in countries like the Netherlands, in Germany and the Scandinavian countries so we will continue with that work and the key point is that once we have completed that work, the people of this country will have their say in a national referendum on whether to stay in the European Union or to leave the European Union and they are only going to get that say if there is a Conservative victory in elections over the coming year.  

DM: Okay, and as part of that Conservative victory you want to see, would you like to see one of the newly or re-elected MPs being one Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London?  We’re hearing today he has got some sort of wheeze together where he could become an MP, still be Mayor of London and be like a Cabinet Minister, London is like running one of the big departments such as your own?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well that’s for him to decide.  The Prime Minister has made clear and I fully agree with him that Boris is welcome back in parliament, he is one of the great figures of our party.  I have always been a tremendous fan of Boris Johnson and the rest of us in parliament would welcome his return to parliament as well as his continued commitment to the great job that he does as Mayor of London but that is for him to decide when and how he does that.  

DM: But are you keen to have him back like the Prime Minister says he is?  

WILLIAM HAGUE: Yes, as I’ve just been saying, I think the Prime Minister speaks for all of us actually and certainly for me in saying we want Boris back in parliament, we welcome him back in parliament.  We fought hard to make sure he was re-elected as Mayor of London so of course we want him to fulfil his term as Mayor of London and he has shown every commitment to doing that and he continues to do a fantastic job for the people of London but is he welcome back in parliament, do we want him back in parliament?  Of course we do.

DM: Okay Foreign Secretary, we appreciate you sparing the time to talk to us here today.  That’s William Hague the Foreign Secretary.