Mohammed Morsi is in custody today, yet the only crime he has committed was being elected president of his country. Morsi made mistakes. But he was elected, by a majority of the voters, in free and fair elections. During 12 months in power, he did not – to the best of my knowledge – order the arrest of a single political opponent, of a single dissident journalist, or close down a single newspaper or TV channel. That has changed now that General al-Sisi’s junta has taken charge. Already, 10 TV channels have been closed down, numerous journalists have been rounded up and taken to jail, and politicians are locked up in a regime of terror; furthermore, a shoot-to-kill policy has been put in place against protesters. We can understand Mr Hague’s reluctance to upset the United States, which must have given (at the least) a silent blessing to the coup. But it is important to stress that the reluctance of Britain to fill the vacuum left by the moral collapse of Obama’s America carries a significant cost. Last week’s coup d’état was a crucial counter-revolutionary moment, plotted and paid for by the Arab gulf states. Saudi Arabia has emerged as the leader of a group of repressive and anti-democratic regimes that are determined to shape events in the Middle East as they will. The well-informed Israeli website DEBKA noted: “The Egyptian military high command was not working alone when its operations headquarters put together the July 3 takeover of power from the Muslim Brotherhood: it was coordinated closely down to the last detail with the palaces of the Saudi and UAE rulers and the operations rooms of their intelligence services.” Whether deliberately or not, William Hague’s lacklustre response has made him an accessory to this conspiracy. To be fair (once again) to the Foreign Secretary, he is not alone. Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, has used exactly the same woeful language as Mr Hague. I rang Mr Alexander’s office yesterday and asked three times whether he believed that what had taken place was a coup d’état. But it emerged that the shadow foreign secretary, like the Foreign Secretary, was constrained by the requirements of the US Foreign Assistance Act. Mr Alexander’s spokesman was unable to give an answer. How easy we find it, ever since 9/11, to abandon our values! President Morsi had been due to visit Britain today. He was booked to meet David Cameron as an honoured guest in Downing Street. What has changed since the meeting was arranged? Only that he has been arrested, and we are collaborating with his captors. Britain may not be a great power in the world any more, and we can all come to terms with that. But William Hague (and Douglas Alexander, and the Prime Minister) must remember that our relative global impotence should not mean that our magnificent values are no longer of any account.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 10:04:55 +0000
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