A Note on the UAE

Guardian journalist Irvine writes,

The UAE is recognised as a valued investor in the UK, with Boris Johnson recently referring to himself as the "mayor of the eighth emirate". After all, Dubai has invested in a £1.5bn new deepwater port at London Gateway, while up the river, the £36m Emirates Airline cable car carries Londoners across the Thames.

There is no more degrading spectacle than Britain prostrating itself before these corrupt rentier oil rich regimes in order to male London the capital of "capital capital". By the standards of other neighbouring regimes, the UAE is relatively liberal but Cameron's feeble mention of human rights is eyewash.

David Cameron led a delegation to the UAE to, among other things, persuade the Emiratis to purchase 60 British Typhoon aircraft. Human rights were to be discussed, the prime minister said. "On human rights, there are no no-go areas in this relationship."

As a PR guru, the idea of selling billions of pounds worth of military hardware to the UAE- while pretending that this comes under the condition of respecting human rights is as bogus-is exactly the sort of slippery jibberish to be expected from David Cameron.

Clearly there are "no no-go areas" as Cameron, more of crude businessman than a statesman or diplomatic is highly unlikelt to make conditions upon the UAE government over arbitrary detainment or torture when the arms deals are already signed and sealed and London is cravenly dependent upon capital.

Great Britain was one a net exporter of capital that actually did have benefits to both the recipient countries and the City of London. That was founded in tangent with Britain's manufacturing power and export markets. The sight of Britain crawling before such regimes is both demeaning and humiliating.

Those who warble on about what happens in Saudi Arabia or UAE or Qatar is "not our business" ignore the obvious fact it is "our business" because of the reciprocal business relationships that have developed since the 1980s: the British trade in arms and its geopolitical support in return for oil and investments.