Threatening embrace

The sale of English football club Newcastle for £300 million to the Saudi Public Investment Fund was a clear proof that the UK government does not see the colour money even if it's soiled with the blood of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite being an international outcast since the grisly murder of Khashoggi, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his predecessors had no qualms in dealing with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS). Many British newspapers and human rights activists have called the sale of Newcastle as the sign of moral descent.

But why question the sale of a football club, the British leadership has never questioned the dismal human rights record of Saudi Arabia when it comes to arms’ sale. According to the NGO Campaign Against Arms Trade, Britain sold arms worth more than £20 billion since the Saudis began their war in Yemen in 2015. Thousands of civilians, including children, have been killed in Saudi air strikes using made in-UK-bombs.

Now, comes the news that Sunak will be rolling out the red carpet for MbS — as the crown prince is popularly known — on his first visit to the UK since the murder of Khashoggi.

Downing Street, confirming the invitation, said that Prime Minister Sunak plans to meet the Saudi crown prince “at the earliest opportunity”, without mentioning human rights violations in the Kingdom.

Owing to the formidable economic prowess of Saudi Arabia, the Western democratic leaders can't ignore MbS, and Sunak is first off the blocks as Saudis are the biggest buyers of British arms.

Way back in September 2016, the then British Prime Minister Theresa May, during a House of Commons debate, staunchly defended arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite the country facing accusations of war crimes.

While replying to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s call to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the “humanitarian devastation” caused by a Saudi-led coalition waging war against rebels in Yemen, May said, “Actually, what matters is the strength of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. When it comes to counter-terrorism and dealing with terrorism, it is that relationship that has helped to keep people on the streets of Britain safe.”

For Britain, when it comes to Saudi Arabia, normal rules don’t seem to apply. For decades, the two kingdoms have quietly enjoyed a symbiotic relationship centred on the exchange of oil for weapons, even if radical Salafism was coming in as part of the deal.

For the lust of lucre, the British government turned a blind eye to how Saudi funds were making mosques in the country into incubators of Salafism and radicalism.

Even an inquiry commission launched by David Cameron into foreign funding of extremist Islamist groups was shelved by the Home Office because it was thought that it would focus on Saudi Arabia with which the UK has signed a £3.5 billion arms deal.

The ‘Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offenses and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015)’ report published by the Henry Jackson Society — a foreign policy think tank based in London — says: “The threat to the UK remains from homegrown terrorism, and is heavily youth- and male-oriented with British nationals prevalent among offenders”. But as Ed Husain, the author of The Islamist, says, the British government wilfully ignored Hizb ut-Tahrir, refusing to ban it, unlike countries such as Germany, not recognising how it incubated the mentality that saw some members graduate to terrorism.

In 2007, Denis MacEoin, an Islamic studies expert at Newcastle, led a team of researchers over a two-year project, uncovering a hoard of malignant literature inside as many as a quarter of Britain’s mosques. All of it had been published and distributed by agencies linked to the government of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia spends between USD 2-3 billion per year in propagating the Salafi strand of Islam, and all terror groups like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram, the Shabab and others are ardent Salafists.

So, the more the Saudi brand of Islam spreads in Britain, the more it brings disgruntled youths closer to Salafi terror outfits.

That is why the strong UK-Saudi ties, instead of making British streets safe, have made them more unsafe.

The writer has worked in senior editorial positions for many renowned international publications. Views expressed are personal