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ANNA JONES: The latest ceasefire in Ukraine has brought hope but will it bring peace and if it doesn’t, should Britain consider sending arms to help strengthen the Ukrainian Army?  Well I am joined now from Somerset by the former Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, a very good morning to you Liam Fox, how confident are you that this ceasefire will hold?  

LIAM FOX:   Well Chancellor Merkel described it as only a glimmer of hope and I think that in fact is what it is.  We’ve had ceasefires before, where attempts have broken down in the first 48 hours, we wait to see but I’m afraid that the word of President Putin is not worth very much, it hasn’t been in the past.  Everyone hopes this is going to be a breakthrough but I am afraid that confidence cannot be high.  

AJ: So if it doesn’t hold, what next?

LIAM FOX: Well if it doesn’t hold there needs to be further pressure on Russia.  Remember this is a crisis made in Moscow, Moscow annexed the Crimea, we saw the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner with a Russian missile, a Buk missile, which we know that Russia has been giving to the armed rebels in Ukraine.  It’s Russia that needs to step back and leave the Ukraine in peace.    

AJ: Should Britain send lethal weapons to Ukraine if the ceasefire doesn’t hold?  

LIAM FOX:   Well we’ll be faced with a very difficult choice because if we were to do nothing and Russia were to continue its aggression, then you could see the dismemberment of Ukraine, that would have a major impact on wider security. We know that Russia is giving three particular types of weapons to the Ukrainian rebels, that is secure communications, new heavily armoured vehicles and also anti-aircraft missiles.  It would be I think prudent to ensure that Ukraine was able to counter all three of these things for its own security.  Remember, Ukraine is the country that has been attacked here, it is not the aggressor.  

AJ: Many would point out that sending lethal weapons to Ukraine wouldn’t deter Russia.  They point to examples in Chechnya for example where Russia was prepared to take a lot of losses, risk a lot of losses, isn’t there the potential to escalate the situation further if you send in lethal weapons and potentially divide the West on the issue because not everyone is of agreement on this issue?

LIAM FOX:   Well the question would be whether we want to do something or nothing.  Are we going to simply stand back and watch another example of Russian aggression?  Let’s be very clear what Russia is up to here, Russia has been bullying the small countries in the Baltic States, it has got its Baltic base in Kaliningrad, it is potentially destabilising the Balkans through the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia, it has got a client state in Armenia in the South Caucasus, it has still got troops occupying parts of Georgia, are we going to stand back and watch not only the annexation of the Crimea but Russian permanent troops based on the sovereign territory of Ukraine?  This is a major issue for the free world because Russia is very clearly now an aggressive power.

AJ: I just wanted to draw you out a little bit further then on what you think President Putin’s ultimate ambitions are, how far do you think he wants to go?

LIAM FOX:   I think it’s very clear that he wants to be able to create client states which potentially will destabilise European security, I think we’ve been very lax for a long time.  We watched the cyber-attack on Estonia, we didn’t respond to that, the Russian invasion of Georgia, we had a very muted response there, when they cut off Ukraine’s gas we did nothing and I think he has been emboldened by this and I think it’s time for us to recognise that NATO in particular needs to show greater solidarity, we will need to increase our military exercises, we will need to increase our number of bases in some of our NATO allies and of course we’ll all have to ensure that we spend what we are committed to in terms of wider NATO defence.  

AJ: It’s interesting you use the word solidarity, isn’t that one of the issues that comes up when you talk about sending lethal weapons, there is not agreement within NATO and within the EU and if some countries are calling for it and others aren’t, hasn’t President Putin achieved one of his aims and that is to divide the west?  

LIAM FOX:   Well it’s of course one of the weaknesses that the west has, that not all our allies are willing to play their full role.  Some countries seem to believe that they should get their insurance policy without ever paying the premiums, that’s something that we have to deal with at a political level so political solidarity as well as showing that we are willing to use the force that we have if necessary, it’s what is required to stop this.  If we continue to do nothing, if we continue to not respond, then we are going to get the position we always get from Russian nationalists which is that they will take as much as they can get and that is not a good picture in terms of our wider security in the longer term.  Appeasement has a bad track record.  

AJ: How comfortable were you that Britain wasn’t part of the negotiations in Minsk, that we saw Chancellor Merkel and we saw Francois Hollande there but no David Cameron?   Are we on the sidelines?  

LIAM FOX:   No, I don't think we are and we were at the forefront if you remember with the Prime Minister pushing for economic sanctions on Russia where Britain had a very major role to play and I think that is perfectly reasonable…

AJ: So why wasn’t he in Minsk?  

LIAM FOX:   Well I think it was perfectly reasonable that it was Chancellor Merkel who has a better personal relationship it seems with President Putin, and President Hollande.  Relations with Russia, between Moscow and London, have not been great in recent years, not least since the murder of Litvinenko, so I think it was perfectly reasonable for that to take place and I didn’t draw any diplomatic conclusions from that at all.  

AJ: General Sir Richard Shirreff called Britain a diplomatic irrelevance.   

LIAM FOX:  Well that was his opinion and I think it was completely wrong, I think we have been at the forefront of putting the economic pressure on Russia which has been extremely important but I think that we are also going to be playing a major role, as we are a major partner in NATO, to get the United States and our NATO allies in line and I think that Britain with the fourth biggest defence budget in the world, a major playing inside the G8, a major player inside NATO and the EU, has a very important role to play in how security in Europe develops.  

AJ: As a former Defence Secretary I wonder if  I could just get your view on the news overnight of the shootings in Copenhagen.  Clearly everybody’s thoughts are with the people concerned there and the tragedy they’ve gone through but what concerns do you have about those shootings and the implications, the lessons that Britain might be able to learn?

LIAM FOX:  I think that the most important thing that we can do is to redouble our efforts in terms of intelligence to be able to try and spot where some of these attacks might come from.  That means giving our intelligence services the tools that they require, that means not only the funding that they require but also giving them the intercept skills that they will need to be able to deal with the fact that we’ve got nearly 700 million websites nowadays which is a lot of terrorist haystacks in which terrorist needles can hide.    

AJ: And one other subject, because it’s Sunday morning, lots of stories around, Ken Clarke, your former colleagues, is calling for a rethink on the way that parties are funded, he says that the Conservatives should think about not being so reliant on millionaire donors, do you agree with him?

LIAM FOX:  Well I think it’s right to consider caps on donations and that needs to go for the trade unions as well supporting the Labour party but I have a bit of a reservation I have to say when it comes to using tax payers money to fund political parties.  You know, we’re still overspending as a country, we need to live within our means, I doubt if there are very many taxpayers out there who would like to see more of their hard earned taxes given out to party politicians so that they can campaign.  I think that’s something that in a free democratic country we should do for ourselves.  

AJ: Okay, Liam Fox, former Defence Secretary, we appreciate your time this morning, thanks very much indeed.  

LIAM FOX: Thank you.