Truss and Qatar: PM set to deepen relations with authoritarian Gulf state
Prime minister Liz Truss has indicated she will court Qatar as an energy partner to counter the UK’s energy crisis. The authoritarian regime, known for its long list of human rights violations, is already closely aligned to the UK and will host the World Cup in December. Doha News reported that the Qatari and British energy ministers had spoken on Tuesday 5th October. But at the centre of these new plans, there is a gaping contradiction.
Because Truss herself told Tories in her conference speech the following day that the UK had been reliant on gas from authoritarian regimes – meaning Russia – as Declassified UK were quick to point out:
👀 Tuesday – Truss' officials deepen energy relations with Qatar regime.
Wednesday – Liz Truss tells Tories: "One of the reasons we are facing this global crisis is because … we became too dependent on authoritarian regimes for cheap goods and energy".https://t.co/s8PaOFjIgp
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) October 6, 2022
Read on...
Presumably Qatar isn’t an authoritarian regime to Truss’s mind. Though quite a few people would disagree…
Qatari regime
Qatar is an authoritarian monarchy, like many of its Gulf neighbours. And like them, Qatar is the recipient of massive amounts of British military equipment.
As the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) explains:
Qatar is an authoritarian state with strict judicial constraints on freedom of expression. Detainees are subject to beatings and cruel treatment while a great many immigrant workers are trapped in conditions of forced labour.
Also according to CAAT, Qatar was the 10th largest importer of arms globally between between 2015 and 2019. With UK arms exports licenses accounting for £384mn of the national total. In 2018 BAE Systems and Qatar signed a deal for Eurofighter underwritten by the government to the tune of £4.5bn. Meaning if Qatar defaults, BAE gets paid by the taxpayers.
The World Cup
These deals, and now any energy agreement which is reached, are conducted under the shadow of Qatar’s various human rights abuses. Of acute importance in 2022 is the treatment of migrant workers who have prepared Qatar to host the World Cup.
Amnesty’s detailed 2020/21 report lists Qatar’s terrifying record on LGBT rights, women’s rights and trade unions. It also details the ‘kafala’ system to which many workers have been subjected. Kafala is, in effect, a system of indentured servitude which stops workers, for example, leaving the country or switching jobs.
Human Rights Watch has said:
the kafala system remains in place and continues to facilitate the abuse and exploitation of the country’s migrant workforce.
Many migrant workers come from places like India and Bangladesh and have been forced to live and work in squalid conditions. Some estimates put the death toll for south Asian migrant labourers since Qatar won its bid for the World Cup at 6750.
Human rights disaster
Truss is well known for her clangers. And her latest plan to wean Britain off gas from a hardline regime, by getting it from a different hardline regime is another in a long of line of transparently stupid decisions. The energy crisis is very real, but it’s also the right time to start transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards more sustainable energy.
Given she is literally the prime minster of the country, she clearly has the power. It’s time to stop being a moral vacuum on the matter of workers rights for the sake of resources.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/US Ambassador to the UK, cropped to 770 x 403
We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
No surprise here. Like the rest of her Tory ilk, Truss is an identikit psychopath. Sickening and despicable.
Do you really imagine that a Labour government, of any ilk, would act differently? The historical record does not lead me to conclude otherwise, given the blood-soaked hands of many Labour prime ministers over such disasters as Biafra and Yemen in the 1960s. Morality is of no importance to Labour, any more than to Tories.
We are in an energy crisis, because Thatcher privatised our utilities, along with Shell and BP. Labour never reversed Thatcher’s privatisation, but continued to pursue her policies. We have oil and gas production wells off the UK’s coast, but most of this is exported. We actually import a lot of our gas from Norway!
Despite our politicians being informed of the need to move away from exponential growth and fossil fuels, with the Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth’ in 1972. Followed by the Brundtland report, ‘Our Common Future’ in 1987. Our politicians have ignored the importance of moving away from fossil fuels, to real renewable energy and energy efficiency. Even now, we have property developer, building homes and other structures, which are very energy inefficient. A lot of these are subsidised by the Government.
Until we get rid of Proportional Representation and a complete clear out of the Conservatives and Labour in our Government, local and national, things are going to get a lot worse in the UK.