David Pratt: UK foreign policy is somehow impotent and mercenary at the same time

Rarely has the duplicitous, unconvincing and increasingly impotent nature of the UK’s foreign policy posturing been laid more bare than by both the state visit by MBS, and what increasingly looks like a Kremlin-sanctioned attempted murder in Salisbury of former Russian spy Colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter, using a nerve agent.

As advertising billboards and posters bearing MBS’s face and slogans such as “Welcome crown prince” and “He is changing Saudi Arabia,” appeared across London, reputedly costing the Saudi government around £1 million, Mr Johnson was only to eager to endorse such fawning. We should all be encouraging MBS along his reforming path, the Foreign Secretary was quick to tell us, as if Riyadh’s new decree allowing women to drive was the be-all and end-all of human rights reform.

Never once, though, did he mention Riyadh’s pending order for 48 more British-made Typhoon jets or the Paveway IV bombs – parts of which are made at the Raytheon plant in Fife – that the Saudi-led airstrikes use in Yemen, blowing countless civilians to pieces in the process.

Never once, either, did he let slip that the UK Government hoped MBS might announce that Saudi Arabia’s $2 trillion planned flotation of Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, will happen on the London Stock Exchange. Let’s not forget that, only last November, the UK Government had to deny that a $2 billion loan to the oil company was tied to efforts to woo Saudi Aramco to list in London.

Never once, too, did he mention Brexit, which undoubtedly was another reason why MBS’s arrival was met with such enthusiasm in Downing Street. With the crown prince aiming to recalibrate the Saudi economy by reducing its dependence on oil and developing sectors such as tourism and entertainment, the UK Government has one eye on post-Brexit business partners, regardless of Riyadh’s human rights record.

The very fact that Donald Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former CIA director David Petraeus along with Mr Johnson are among big fans of MBS should tell you all you need to know about the man the UK is keen to do business with. Meanwhile, as Colonel Skripal, his daughter and a British policemen also affected by the nerve agent fought for their lives in hospital, Mr Johnson, when not fawning over MBS, was also talking tough, promising that Britain would “respond appropriately and robustly,” should Moscow prove to be guilty of the nerve agent attack.

Whom is the Foreign Secretary kidding on both counts? Is he really suggesting that Britain’s engagement with MBS has more to do with promoting democratic and human rights reforms in Saudi Arabia? Is he actually asking us to believe that, should the Russian state’s hand be behind what would effectively be a terrorist attack on UK soil, Britain has any significant bite when it comes to a response?

Short of the hand wringing rhetoric, of which admittedly Mr Johnson is very good, there is little the UK could inflict that would give Mr Putin cause for sleepless nights, not least as he prepares for another shoo-in presidential election.

That much was evident when Mr Johnson resorted once again to shooting from the lip, threatening a boycott of UK officials, dignitaries and ministers of the World Cup in Russia, but not the England football team. Now that, for certain, will have them trembling in the Kremlin. But, all joking aside, it really is unlikely that expelling a few more diplomats or restricting visas for Russians generally will have much of an impact, except perhaps in being self wounding to the UK.

I’m talking about the way it would hamper all those Russian oligarchs who own much of central London’s expensive real estate by laundering cash the UK tolerates to support London’s property market. Tougher asset stripping of wealthy Russians would probably just make them take their money elsewhere and bring little additional pressure on Moscow.

Yet again, here we have another stark illustration of the impotency of UK foreign policy that comes from its dysfunctional state; one that only makes rods for the Government’s own diplomatic back.

There is, of course, the option of imposing yet more unilateral sanctions on Russia but try securing support for that one from our European partners, given their righteous anger at the UK’s Brexit bravado.

Many EU members are already openly cosying up to Moscow. The outcome of last weekend’s Italian elections is a point in case, where power broker and potential king maker of any new government, Silvio Berlusconi, is more than chummy with Mr Putin and in Russia sees an ally.

Supporters of Brexit made the case that, once the UK was freed from the constraints of the EU, it could pursue an energetic future as a rejuvenated “Global Britain”. For some time, Britain has been casting around for a new place in the world embracing a foreign policy that, at best, is rudderless and, at its worst, is leaving the country vulnerable as never before.

As journalist Steven Erlanger, writing in a controversial piece for the New York Times last year pointed out about the UK’s standing in the world, “no-one knows what Britain is anymore.”

Towards the end of 2017 the newly formed British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG), a non-profit organisation, released a much-needed report calling for a new strategy that recognised and integrated the UK’s international security, trade and wider diplomatic interests, built around a set of publicly shared objectives.

UK foreign policy objectives could not be further removed from such a considered, collective position. At one and the same time, as this week has shown, our foreign policy is both mercenary and impotent on the world stage. It has become toothless and grasping and it’s all of the Government’s making.