On 14 December 2006, the day when the government announced the SFO were abandoning their inquiry into the Saudi arms deal, I came under a lot of criticism in the comments section for writing
THIS...
... and now the most shaming thing I think I have heard in years - the Attorney General announces the abandonment of the probe into BAe's fighter planes deal with Saudi Arabia. Let me put this bluntly. The government has backed down in the face of Saudi threats - it has acceded to blackmail. It argues that the decision has been made "in the wider public interest" yet it has basically prostrated the British nation at the feet of Saudi bribery and corruption. Shameful. Truly shameful. See how Blair, Goldsmith and Browne try to defend the indefensible HERE on the BBC News site. Today is the day the British people must now realise that this government isn't fit to govern us. They've brought shame on themselves, their government and their country.
I thought long and hard afterwards about whether I had called that one right. Today's High Court ruling convinces me that I did. No one denies that jobs are important. Few would deny that the national interest is also important, but surely the government must have known that that they were on shaky legal ground when making this decision? And the revelation aired by the BBC this afternoon that the Saudis blackmailed the government by threatening a 9/11 equivalent is beyond disgusting. For a British government to accede to that level of blackmail is shocking in its own right. Lord Justice Moses was absolutely right when he said this in his judgement...
"No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice. It is the failure of government and the defendant to bear that essential principle in mind that justifies the intervention of this court."
I'd happily second that. Gordon Brown now faces an invidious decision. Either he stands by what Tony Blair did or he repudiates it and faces the consequences. I don't envy him.
30 comments:
Where's the bit about threatening a 9/11? I can't find it in the linked article.
Tough choice, knife Tony or lose an order worth billions and up the terrorist threat to the country.
If I know my man Gordon, it'll be knives out time.
Iain, can you not at least put on a pretence of 'reporting' the 'news' instead of this asinine and feeble attempt to pretend that everything Gordon Brown does is nonsense, and the Tories would be better across the board ?
For heaven's sake, who was the Prime Minister who went to Saudi Arabia to help clinch the Al-Yamamah deal ??
Here is a clue.. 'batting for Britain..'. Grow up and at least try and give a balanced view, or just give up pretending that you are anything other than a third rate Richard Littlejohn wannabe who is fast trying into a fat, grumpy old git without the wit and wisdom to realise that the eighties just ain't cool any longer..
Iain...On an entirely different topic....Is it just me ..or is Nadine Dorries losing the plot? Her comments on abortion border on the obsessive and todays post on Iraq..well..Don't drink and blog..you know it makes sense..Regards, Martin
Really enjoyed Malcolm Rifkind defending the SFO decision (C4 News).
After all, which Government, back in the '80s, set up the al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia? That, after all, is the root matter.
And whose Old Harrovian son is alleged to have been a recipient of £2M of the wonga?
And now, the £8B Typhoon deal is signed, sealed and in the bag.
No, I very much doubt there will be too many carpet-chewings in Downing Street over this one.
I know someone deeply involved in the investigation. Despite his being a lawyer I would trust his judgement (he is a very good and, unusually, a very honest lawyer) and more importantly it was in his interest for the case to continue, as he was being paid by the hour.
He says that the decision was entirely correct. While there was plenty of evidence of payments that went against British morals, none of them were actually illegal at the time they were made. Despite what a lot of lefties try (including or government) laws should not and generally are not made retrospective.
We have just seen over £10,000,000 spent on the Diana enquiry only to know what we already knew. Why spend more money on investigating deals that are ancient history as far as the middle east dynamic is concerned.
I would rather we spent our energy on enforcing good relations in the future than re-examining the past.
Anonymous 8.08. If you had actually bothered to read the post you'd have understood that far from criticising Brown, I was sympathising with the invidious position he finds himself i. What a pity you rushed to judgement before actually thinking about the crap you were writing.
How sweet that Gordon Brown has another difficult moral decision to make. Thank goodness he is such an expert on courage. I suggest he puts British national interests first. That is what a British Prime Minister should do.
Lets get real here!
If you want to deal with the Saudis you have to give them bribes, it goes with the territory.
If anyone made a mistake it was Margaret Thatcher for dealing with them in the first place BUT if we hadn't sold them the planes the French or the Yanks or the Russians or the.... would have...
Do you have to be a poor, working class mother to get your collar felt for perverting the course of justice these days.
Why haven't the Met turned up on Blair's doorstep yet?
NuLab defence team out in force tonight.
Anon 8.08... Re. your claim that you would like this blog to report the news. Come off it, Iain Dale's Diary isn't set up as a BBC. You'll find the MSM thataway =>
Facts + insight + opinion + gossip + observation + judgement = blog
"This is going to call for some major dithering....I feel a slight pain in a back molar, might take a few days to get it fixed.. couldn't possibly speak now.
Hello Des, got a little job for you for Fridays Today program.."
Why would Brown do anything when he could just as easily dither?
I endorse what Chris a says.
Blair committed an illegality by perverting the course of justice over the BAE arms deal.
Blair committed the Nuremberg offence of conspiring to commit aggressive war.
Why aren't the police acting?
Why aren't you, Iain Dale, asking for the police to act?
What has to happen to put Blair away? Is Blair above the law?
IMHO this is priority uno.
The reference to jobs in the context of whether or not to discontinue a prosecution is absolutely irrelevant legally. Blair knew that, and in typical style he managed to refer to the potential job losses AND say that they didn't play a part in the decision. Goldsmith saying that the decision was the head of the SFO's was the most ludicrous bit, though. He's an arrogant, nasty piece of work, and I'm delighted that his cowardice over Iraq in bowing to political pressure has permamnetly stained his reputation.
Yet again uppity lawyers usurp a democratic government to inflict damage on the nation's economy. We need a serious culling of those chappies.
Yet again uppity lawyers usurp a democratic government to inflict damage on the nation's economy. We need a serious culling of those people.
Which is worse for Brown, his invidious decision or the Cabinet's insidious division.
Iain is absolutely right on this one. This isn't about whether it *should* be illegal to bribe foreign officials (to get contracts which are in the national interest). It is about whether, given that Parliament in 2001 decided that it should be illegal, we should allow the policing of our criminal law to be interfered with by blackmail on the part of those the subject of investigation.
The Saudi threat was outrageous. The only appropriate response was to tell them to bugger off (or, more politely put, to tell them that in our democracy the conduct of criminal investigations and prosecutions was not something the government could control).
The Blair government was completely spineless. The integrity of our legal system from foreign blackmail is something worth fighting for. The precedent set by this episode would have been appalling if the Courts had not stepped in. Imagine the next time a foreign government (whether friendly or hostile) wanted to influence a criminal investigation or prosecution. The British government would not then be able to say with any credibility that it could not intervene. It would be obvious that it could. Future governments would be placed in a much weaker position to resist such threats.
To those who say "it's all ancient history and there's no evidence anyway", my understanding is that part of the investigation relates to payments made after the new law came into effect in 2002. In any event, it's clear from the judgment that the decision to drop the case was NOT made because the evidence was insufficient. It was made because of the of the Saudi threats. If the evidence ultimately does not come up to scratch, presumably there will be no prosecution. But until it is allowed to complete its investigation, the SFO can't make that call.
anonymous@9:06am: "Blair committed an illegality by perverting the course of justice over the BAE arms deal."
A prosecution may always be discontinued on public interest grounds and there's no question of his having committed the offence of perverting the course of justice. The debate is whether the public interest was served in this case by the discontinuance, and whether the decision to discontinue was taken properly. But there is no question that the decision was Blair's, transmitted to Goldsmith; and that Goldsmith spinelessly pressurised the head of the SFO to take the decision himself, rather than having the balls to step in and perform his constiutional function of taking that decision himself.
jonny mac said: "A prosecution may always be discontinued on public interest grounds and there's no question of his having committed the offence of perverting the course of justice."
I don't agree. Please follow my logic.
Bandar "went into No 10 and said (to Powell) 'get it stopped'.
Blair did as he was told (through Powell) and wrote to Goldsmith to spell out the damage.
Goldsmith spoke to Wardle of the SFO who stopped the investigation.
Moses said that the government's public interest justification was a "pretext".
Moses said the need to stand up to attempts to pervert the course of justice is important.
Moses said that dropping the investigation was convenient to the government and BAE.
So, as I read it, Moses said that the government's public interest defence is a sham pretext.
It follows that Blair is an accomplice in Bandar's attempt to pervert the course of justice.
The police should now arrest Blair for questioning.
They did not accept the word of Shannon Matthews' mother and have charged her with perverting the course of justice.
Blair should be similarly charged, and Goldsmith, Wardle, Powell and all the other ..... (fill in with your own pejorative) questioned.
Leaving aside the matter of threats and blackmail (yes, I know that's what everyone is hot under the collar about) the issue of 'bribes' is a complete nonsense as some have recognised. I worked in the defence / aerospace industry for some years. When doing business overseas you need local access, local knowledge and local connections. What do you do? - you appoint an agent with these credentials - the best you can find. The basis of the 'agency' is commission - usually a percentage of the value of the deal. And the level of the percentage reflects the level of competition and all the long term benefits of winning. It could be 1%, 5% or 10%. And no win, no commission. What the agent does with his commission is his own affair. That's the way the world works whether UK, France, USA or whoever, and not just in defence sales either.
As I recall, the exercise of the 'dispensing power' (i.e. letting your mates off the hook in criminal proceedings) was one of the many privileges claimed by Charles I and contested by Parliament. And we all know how that ended.
I expect Brown will get around to restarting the investigation, with suitably stirring rhetoric, with secret instructions that no conclusion will be reached for at least two years...
Anonymous 8:08, palpably missing the point of a blog, writes: "Iain, can you not at least put on a pretence of 'reporting' the 'news'".
I didn't know Iain was a reporter. I thought he owned a highly opinionated blogsite on which he invites comments fromother highly opinionated people.
OTOH, I second the question asked by Anonymous 9:06: What has to happen to get Blair banged up? Why hasn't this vile, posturing little rat had his collar felt by now?
I loathe the arms trade. I would happily ban all sale of arms abroad, provided that the Government had put in the groundwork to ensure continuing employment elsewhere for the often highly skilled workers involved.
And I would dearly love to see BAe returned to public ownership as the monopoly supplier to the British Armed Forces.
But good luck to the Government in legislating to give the Attorney General, accountable to Parliament, the power to halt the investigation or prosecution of a foreign national in the interests of national security. Though only if it also legislates to halt such actions in the interests of British jobs.
That would be One Nation politics, with an equal emphasis on the One and on the Nation. And it would reassert parliamentary democracy, not rule by unelected, practically irremovable, and wildly unrepresentative judges.
For the BAe "scandal" was in fact one of the very few authentically Labour things that the Blair Government ever did. It reasserted the priority of high-wage, high-skill, high-status jobs, as well as of the national interest generally (regrettable though it is that this is defined as cuddling up to the Saudis), and of Parliament and the Government drawn from and accountable to Parliament, over the Liberal notion, scandalously given judicial effect by this ruling in a sort of coup, of an American-style "separation of powers" involving in practice (as in the US) the supremacy of an unelected judiciary, and that still drawn (unlike the Bar generally these days) from a very narrow social, socio-economic and educational base indeed.
And this whole BAe business is, in any case, as nothing compared to John Major's appointment of Jonathan Aitken (whom I freely accept is now a changed man these days) as Minister of Defence Procurement on the direct orders of the Saudi Royal Family. Remember that? Some of us do.
pardon the counterfactuals but I have always felt that had the Torys been in power they would have both supported the war in Iraq and made the same decision re BAE. Thatcher (inshallah) supported Pinochet after all.
Anonymous 1:59 - Don't use foreign words or phrases unless correctly. Especially when you're producing what you think is a killer point.
Anonymous 8:08 - "into a fat, grumpy old git without the wit and wisdom to realise that the eighties just ain't cool any longer.."
Why is it a particular type of British man often turns to Americanisms for his tiny putdowns? I keep meaning to compile a list of Americanism employed by people who, I am sure, regard the United States with contempt. But when I encounter their stale points and their stale clichés, my eyes glaze over. Or, as you would say, "... hey! my eyes glaze over".
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