There’s a sordid reason why the PM castigates Israel while cosying up the UAE, which faces its own accusations of complicity in genocide
Daily Telegraph 05/10/26
There’s nothing like a Biblical misquote to get the week off to a fine start: “By their friends shall ye know them,” as the gospel of Matthew didn’t quite say. But it’s a truism that can be applied productively across both business and politics. Similarly, the identity of those whom politicians have decided are their opponents can be a useful signpost as to the direction of a government.
In the case of this Labour government, Israel has been repeatedly identified as the bad guy in foreign policy terms, a breathtakingly cynical conclusion which ministers hope will make it easier to appeal to a key demographic of voters. A swathe of Cabinet ministers face tough re-election battles in constituencies with large Muslim populations, which goes a long way towards explaining why Andy Burnham has sought to appease campaigners who falsely claim that the Jewish State has committed genocide in Gaza.
At the same time, one of the closest friends of our new Prime Minister – if not the entire Cabinet – is the United Arab Emirates, a big investor in Britain. The UAE is an oil-rich despotism, with a record of torture and the “disappearance” of government critics. It has faced its own accusations of complicity in genocide and other war crimes – this time, in the Sudanese civil war, where it is alleged to be one of the key backers of the so-called Rapid Support Forces, who have committed multiple atrocities against civilians. It should go without saying that there aren’t many votes in condemning mass murder in Sudan. Neither side in the civil war is Israeli.
So Burnham’s foreign policy is based on a paradox: our Government has turned its back on Israel, one of Britain’s most important, historic allies, a nation that continues to share vital anti-terrorism intelligence with us, while embracing an authoritarian monarchy with a deeply troubling record at home and abroad.
But it is a paradox that we might not be able to ignore for much longer now that the UAE’s financial involvement in Manchester, before and during Andy Burnham’s time as mayor there, has come under intense scrutiny following the Manchester City financial scandal.
The club faces possible relegation after it was found guilty by an independent commission of more than 100 breaches of Premier League financial rules. Manchester City are appealing the verdict. It was the kind of controversy you would not expect the Prime Minister to become publicly embroiled in, but embroil himself Burnham did, saying that he would be “really concerned to lose” the UAE as owners of the club after it had been “such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester”.
Burnham later “clarified” his statement, with Downing Street making clear that no football club is above the rules. But he was right to identify the Emirates’ influence in generating the so-called Manchester miracle that helped propel him to No 10 earlier this year. In 2008, the city was in dire straits after the cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games had escalated far beyond its planned budget. Meanwhile, Manchester City FC were at the centre of a scandal as its then owner, Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister, was charged with corruption and his assets were frozen.
A saviour arrived in the form of Abu Dhabi United Group, a private equity group headed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Emirati royal, who purchased Manchester City Football Club for £200m, a deal that opened the door to billions of pounds of further investment in the city. Many jobs and businesses, not to mention Manchester City FC, have thrived as a result of the sheikh’s largesse.
Burnham must be aware that his comments on the UAE would leave him open to accusations of hypocrisy, exposing as it does the double-standards inherent in his Government’s support for human rights abroad. Earlier this year, the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the UAE of recruiting Colombian mercenaries and transiting them through Emirati military bases to support paramilitary troops who committed atrocities in Sudan. The UAE vehemently denies the charge.
Strangely, HRW’s accusation that Israel had committed acts of genocide during the recent conflict in Gaza was taken a lot more seriously by Labour ministers. Burnham has since imposed various sanctions on Israel (and has doubtless boasted of such measures on election literature in support of Labour’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election now taking place).
When can we expect to see similar sanctions on the UAE? What’s that you say? Never? We’re surely not suggesting that the future of a football club – albeit one in the sacred and holy land of “the North” – is more important than our decades-long support for the Middle East’s only true democracy, an ally that suffered the worst pogrom of Jews since the Second World War at the hands of Islamist militants almost exactly three years ago?
That Burnham is apparently unbothered by such criticism of his foreign policy suggests that the fear in No 10 is of something greater. Unless he can keep the UAE onside and continuing to invest in the city of which he was recently mayor, the public might well discover the “Manchester miracle” was built on sand, and that absent the Emirati billions, the revival of the city was little more than a mirage.
If that came out, it would undermine Burnham’s whole case for being Prime Minister. Where are the votes in that?
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