Tory MP Urges Boris Johnson to Scrap Foreign Aid to India Over Stance on Ukraine

Although the UK said in 2012 that it would end foreign aid to India by 2015, figures released by the British government in September last year showed that the annual development assistance to the south Asian nation actually increased to £107.8 million in 2019. The UK's aid budget for India in 2021-22 has also increased marginally.

Former UK Defence Minister and Tory Member of Parliament, Johnny Mercer, has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to scrap millions of pounds' foreign aid to India because of New Delhi’s stance on Russia's military operation in Ukraine.

Tory MP calls for ending foreign aid to India over its stand on Russia

© Photo : Twitter / @JohnnyMercerUK

"I am a strong supporter of foreign aid and voted against this Government’s reduction of it. However, if we sanction [President Vladimir] Putin’s mates, it’s time to end this donation too. Far worthier causes around," the Tory backbencher remarked on Twitter, as he cited a news report about an online meeting between leaders of the Quad countries on Thursday (3 March).

Mercer’s boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has been one of the western leaders to blame Russia for the present security crisis between Moscow and the 30-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

In lockstep with US, EU and other western allies, the UK government slapped economic sanctions against the Russian Central Bank and several other financial institutions, as well as the country’s political leadership because of the crisis in Ukraine.

On 24 February, Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation aimed at the de-Nazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, and at stopping the genocide by the Ukrainian regime of the Russian-speaking people in Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics, two Ukrainian regions which declared independence from Kiev back in 2014.

Moscow also has demanded that the 30-nation NATO bloc, which includes EU nations, the UK and the US, abandons its "open-door policy" and jettisons any plans to grant Ukraine member status in the future.

Johnson has said that NATO has no plans to grant membership to Ukraine, the western nations have supplied more than $1.5 billion in military supplies to the administration of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky since hostilities erupted.

India, for its part, has maintained that it doesn’t comply with unilateral western sanctions. India, along with China, has also regularly abstained from voting on several western-backed United Nations (UN) resolutions calling Russia, one of New Delhi’s foremost defence partners, the “aggressor” in Ukraine. New Delhi has said that it respects “legitimate security concerns” of all sides and backs dialogue to end the hostilities.

New Delhi’s neutral stance is appreciated by Moscow, but has put India at odds with the position adopted by the US and its other western partners.

“Let me say that all of us have been working to urge India to take a clear position, a position opposed to Russia's actions. But what have we seen so far? We have seen a number of abstentions," the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, said at a senate foreign relations committee hearing this week.

Quad Meeting

The four-nation Quad grouping comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US, seeks to “defend” an “open and inclusive Indo-Pacific” region amid Beijing’s rising economic and military influence. Beijing perceives the US-led group as being directed against it and has described it as an “Asian NATO”.

Australia, Japan and the US have sought to make the Ukraine situation part of Quad’s agenda. Australia and Japan have also committed millions of dollars to Kiev, besides slapping sanctions on Russian entities.

A joint statement released after the Quad meeting said that the “ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine were discussed by the partners and its broader implications were assessed”.

However, a separate statement issued by the Indian foreign ministry quoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling other Quad leaders that the grouping “must remain focused on its core objective of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region”.