Some of the most senior figures in the British establishment have secretly served as ‘privy councillors’ to a highly repressive dictatorship in the Gulf state of Oman. The elite UK group has included heads of MI6 and the military, a foreign minister, an oil executive, the ex-governor of the Bank of England and one of Queen Elizabeth’s closest aides.
Archive
BAE Systems sold weaponry worth £17.6bn to Saudis during Yemen war
by PHIL MILLER | 16 April 2021
TAGGED: BAE Systems, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
The scale of British arms sales to Riyadh rises again amid secrecy over a meeting between BAE and trade minister Liam Fox after the Khashoggi killing. Documents show both the UK trade ministry and BAE sought to keep arming Saudi Arabia in the immediate wake of the dissident’s murder.
Burma bloodbath is a lesson Britain must learn from
by PHIL MILLER | 14 April 2021
TAGGED: Burma, Police
The terrible scenes of young people being gunned down by Burma’s military junta should make British diplomats think hard about why their policy of aiding and trading with the regime went so wrong.
While media focuses on Russian money, UK ministers allow Gulf tyrannies to invest £140bn in Britain
by MOLLY ANTIGONE HALL | 9 April 2021
TAGGED: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE
Five highly repressive Gulf states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — have been able to invest at least £140bn in Britain. The figure is more than five times larger than Russian investments in the UK, which have, by contrast, received sustained criticism in the media and government.
Revealed: UK ignored Chechnya war crimes to push BP’s oil interests as it worked to get Vladimir Putin elected in 2000
by MATT KENNARD | 8 April 2021
TAGGED: BP, Russia, Ukraine
The British government sought, in 2000, to integrate Putin’s Russia into the Western-ruled economic system, despite its brutal military campaign in Chechnya, documents obtained by Declassified show.
Secrecy: British special forces were more transparent during World War 2 than today, study finds
by MURRAY JONES | 2 April 2021
TAGGED: SAS
The UK government refuses to provide information to Parliament about the role of the military’s special forces in overseas wars, routinely claiming this is a ‘long-standing policy’ – but new research finds this was invented in the late 1980s to deepen the culture of secrecy in Whitehall.
Days after Khashoggi killing, British military sold crucial spare parts to Saudi air force bombing Yemen
by PHIL MILLER | 1 April 2021
TAGGED: BAE Systems, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
Journalist Jamal Khashoggi criticised the Saudi regime for its ‘cruel war’ in Yemen and weeks later it murdered him, sparking an international outcry. But while his fiancée frantically searched for his body, Britain’s military quietly sold spare parts to Saudi Arabia’s air force, so it could keep bombing Yemen. And that arms deal is just one in a series of controversial weapons exports uncovered by Declassified UK.
The British ambassador who supported a coup
by MARK CURTIS | 30 March 2021
TAGGED: Bolivia
Britain’s ambassador to Bolivia, Jeff Glekin, played a personal role in events leading up to the 2019 military-backed coup that deposed the country’s democratically elected president, Evo Morales — and strongly supported the new regime as it carried out two massacres of unarmed protesters, Declassified has found.
The UK military’s secrecy problem
by RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR | 26 March 2021
TAGGED: Afghanistan, Books, Iraq
A new book, revealing abuses by the British army in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, illustrates how the Ministry of Defence and the military establishment try to censor, bully and threaten publishers and journalists, often successfully.
The final frontier: Could Britain’s new spaceports embroil the UK in future star wars?
by PHIL MILLER | 24 March 2021
TAGGED: Lockheed Martin, Space
Britain wants to put satellites into space from home soil next year. At first, the futuristic ‘spaceports’ were aimed at commercial users. But now they could become embroiled in star wars, with the military telling Declassified it has met entrepreneurs from more than half of the UK’s launch pad companies.