Revealed: Dozens of UK former senior officials profit from fossil fuel corporations, rubber-stamped by Whitehall committee

By Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 4 February 2021 New research finds that dozens of senior UK defence, foreign office and intelligence officials find employment with oil, gas and mining corporations once they leave public office, rubber-stamped by a Whitehall committee which pays little attention to potential conflicts of interest. Such private profiting from energy companies […]

DFID’s dangerous new Economic Development Strategy

DFID yesterday published its Economic Development Strategy.[1] There’s a lot of fine-sounding rhetoric in the document and, on paper, it contains some progressive policies in the area of traditional foreign aid. But these are completely overshadowed by the UK’s global economic priorities which remain (in fact, are increasingly) neo-liberal and which are completely at odds […]

Britain’s Trade and Aid Policies After Brexit – Neo-liberalism Goes Mad

By Mark Curtis Published in the Huffington Post, 6 December 2016 A picture is emerging of likely British trade and aid policies towards developing countries after Brexit. That picture is just as disturbing as two other likely consequences of Brexit that I detailed in my previous article – a deepening of relations with authoritarian regimes […]

Dreaming of Empire? UK Foreign Policy Post-Brexit

Report written by Mark Curtis for Global Justice Now. To read the PDF version go here. November 2016 Since the EU referendum on 23 June, many people have theorised on what the consequences for British foreign policy might be. Some have stressed the dangers, others the opportunities. Nearly six months on, a picture is gradually […]

Africa’s Massive Revenue Losses From Tax Incentives

Huffington Post, 5 August 2016 For over 30 years, Western countries such as the US and UK, and international bodies like the World Bank and IMF, have told African governments to cut their tax rates to attract foreign investment. The result of this policy is now clear and is not pretty – governments in Africa […]

Britain’s New African Empire

Published in the Huffington Post, 26 July 2016 Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange control over $1trillion worth of Africa’s resources in just five commodities – oil, gold, diamonds, coal and platinum. My research for the NGO, War on Want, which has just been published, reveals that 101 companies, most of them British, control […]

London Stock Exchange complicit in global tax secrecy

12 May 2016 This research, undertaken for Global Justice Now, is reported in the Guardian here. New research shows that 389 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange are incorporated in tax havens controlled by the UK government. The largest number of companies – 129 – is incorporated in Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. Yet […]

The UK-Energy-Finance-Government Nexus

Report for the World Development Movement (May 2013) This briefing, based on research commissioned by the World Development Movement, outlines the role played by British companies in controversial energy projects in developing countries. It shows the nexus of interests, and revolving door, between these companies and former and current civil servants and Ministers. Many British […]

Fanning the Flames: The role of British mining companies in conflict and the violation of human rights

British mining companies are abusing human rights all over the world at the same time as making record profits and exploring new ‘frontiers’ in territories plagued by conflict. A report I’ve just authored for the NGO, Want on Want, documents the impacts of large-scale mining on communities in twenty countries. London is the centre of […]

Painful extraction

Guardian, 3 August 2007 It all has a depressingly familiar ring. The fingerprints of a British mining company are found to be all over abuses around the world. And again, there are high-level connections with the government. Enervated readers might be tempted to follow the lead of Gordon Brown, who is allowing it all to happen. […]