Fraser Nelson
There aren’t many countries in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, but the Emiratis did so with gusto when he visited Abu Dhabi last month. They laid on a 21-gun salute as jets painted the colours of the Russian flag on the sky. The previous evening, 48 Iranian-made drones had been sent by Russia to bomb targets in five Ukrainian cities: a typical day in his war. But Putin was treated as a conquering hero by the Emirati royal family, who greeted him as their “dear friend” when he arrived in their palace. It was televised, but hard to watch.
All the harder for me because, soon, I could be working for this family. They have agreed to buy The Spectator and The Telegraph through a US-based vehicle, RedBird IMI. There may be more layers, but if you follow the money the trail leads to Abu Dhabi. The White House suspects they’re also developing military links with China and that this tiny dictatorship is not neutral but playing all sides. Buying Putin’s oil and berthing Xi’s ships. Now they want to be British media proprietors as well.
Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, has put the Emirati bid on hold as she considers whether to let it go ahead. She has spoken about referring it to the competition regulator, but the issue here isn’t about competition. It’s a more important question: how close should we get to the Emiratis? They’re our longstanding allies, friends of Israel (still) and have been robust against the Houthis in Yemen. But they are also the proud, flag-waving “dear friends” of Putin. Should this give us pause?
Diplomacy means accepting countries as they are, not as you’d like them to be. Saudi Arabia remains one of the most repressive nations on earth but under Mohammed bin Salman, its young Crown Prince, the kingdom is modernising as fast as anyone could reasonably expect. These are deeply conservative societies whose old attitudes are not so easy to shake. So do we shun them until they’re like us? Or do we act as allies, encouraging their progress? Perhaps offering British investment as an incentive?
For the best part of two centuries, Britain has had warm relations with what is now the UAE. The sheikhdoms that united to create the country in 1971 were all British protectorates and, even now, the RAF uses airbases there. But they have been busy making new friends of late, buying Putin’s anti-tank weapons and supporting him when he tried to bolster Assad in Syria (when Britain was mulling whether to depose him). They’ve been helping the Kremlin to get around sanctions, buying up Russian oil, gold, diamonds: whatever it struggles to sell in the West.
So the UAE is moving from British ally to Kremlin stooge and is trying to find out if anyone in London will notice or care. It’s not clear that anyone does. Keir Starmer’s main economic policy is to attract external investors. Sunak wants them, too. The Emiratis are standing with an open cheque book, their latest offering being £10?billion to invest in various British priorities. They may even bankroll the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, a deal Sunak badly needs. So if we close our eyes and think of the petrodollars, there is plenty of cash on offer.
George Osborne was a big advocate of a “golden era” of economic relations with China where they’d be given access to Britain’s mobile networks and civil nuclear plants in return for – well, not very much. The then chancellor thought he was being worldly and “unlocking” lots of Chinese investment for British companies. Looking back, we were the ones being played. Beijing was encouraging Britain to drop its qualms over dictatorships and human rights abuses in return for a bit of cash – and then start to let Chinese firms embed themselves at the heart of Britain’s national infrastructure.
Osborne is back in the saddle now, advising the Emiratis on the Telegraph deal. An editorial board would be in place to protect this newspaper. Such boards are a worldwide joke, as the recently-sacked president of TVP in Poland will attest. But they can provide a figleaf, to allow the pretence that an organisation can be meaningfully protected from its owner. I’ve yet to meet a journalist who takes this notion seriously. But in Britain (unlike in some other countries) there are no laws that stop newspapers being bought by foreign governments. It has never really come up before.
But the security implications of foreign investment seem to have only dawned on governments in the past few years. Emirati purchases have been creeping up the scale of cultural sensitivity. A 10 per cent stake in Heathrow Airport, a 15 per cent stake in Vodafone, and a 49 per cent stake in wind farms (Dogger Bank and East Anglia Three). They bought Man City FC and poured so much money into it that its rivals started to cry foul. Buying a newspaper is a new frontier, something no foreign government has done before.
So where, if anywhere, do we draw the line? Many democracies have moved to restrict foreign government ownership of advanced technologies (microchips), health infrastructure (hospitals) and critical infrastructure (water, energy, ports, 5G). Britain has tended to be more liberal. “We can be quite sentimental about some of our so-called treasured assets,” said Dominic Johnson, one of Kemi Badenoch’s business ministers, a few weeks ago. “Media and information has moved on.” If this view prevails, then the deal will pass.
The media is certainly changing. More people get their news from Instagram than any newspaper. But I’m not sure how healthy this trend is, or whether Facebook or TikTok can ever be expected to perform the role played by the free press. There is something precious in our tradition of independent, vibrant newspapers. Something worth protecting. And something that is simply not compatible with being owned by a foreign government. To be sure, the Emiratis are our allies. At least for now. But if that changes and they get closer to Moscow, how much of the country’s apparatus do we want in their hands? So now, this deal isn’t about simple investment: this is about testing what influence it can buy. It is now up to Lucy Frazer to decide what she is willing to sell.
The Telegraph
