Seven moderate foreign policies in Labour’s manifesto that are unacceptable to the extremist British elite

by Mark Curtis “We will put conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy, commit to working through the UN, end support for unilateral aggressive wars of intervention and back effective action to alleviate the refugee crisis”. Whitehall will hope these are the kinds of empty words spoken by most governments. But […]

Britain’s role in the war in Palestine, 1948

This is an edited extract from Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam by Mark Curtis While British planners were using Muslim forces to further their interests in India, they were confronted by the outbreak of a Jewish uprising against British rule in their Palestine ‘mandate’. This led to a series of momentous events that […]

Why protests against Trump should be widened to change current UK foreign policy

by Mark Curtis I completely support the protests and opposition to Trump. At the same time, the British government in its foreign policy is now operating outside of any serious democratic control, and is: promoting covert wars in seven countries violating international law in several areas regularly lying to parliament on its actions deepening alliances […]

Britain’s violations of international law

by Mark Curtis The UK is violating and/or facilitating the violation of international law on various fronts, rendering it a rogue state. Trade in Israeli settlement goods UK policy is allowing trade with ‘Israeli’ goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.[1] The British government has stated that it does not even keep a record […]

Britain’s Post-Brexit Foreign Policy Is Becoming Clearer – And It’s Not Pretty

Published in the Huffington Post, 16 November 2016 The likely shape of British foreign policy post-Brexit is slowly emerging five months on from the 23 June referendum, and the picture is extremely concerning from any ethical viewpoint. Britain is on course to ignore human rights in its foreign policy even more than in the recent […]

Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam

Mark Curtis’s new book was published on 1 July 2010 and updated in 2018. Read The Guardian‘s coverage of the book, 6 July 2010, here. Read Mark Curtis’s Guardian article, 6 July 2010, here. Read reviews here (Independent), here (Metro), here (New Humanist) here (Asharq al-Awsat, in Arabic) here (Al-Masry Al-Youm, in Arabic) here (Morning […]

Israel and the bomb, 1961

Report by the Joint Intelligence Committee, “Development of nuclear weapons by fifth countries during the period up to 1970”, 5 September 1961 “Israel began an enlarged atomic energy programme in 1956/57. There is reason to suppose that its purpose was partly military, and the installations now being built could, when complete, be put to military […]

British policy toward the Arab/Israel dispute, 1970

Foreign Office Planning Committee, “Future British Policy Towards the Arab/Israel Dispute”, 14 September 1970 “Neither [a pro-Arab nor a pro-Israel policy]…is practicable.  A pro-Arab policy would be unacceptable to British public opinion and opposed by the US government. A pro-Israeli policy would destroy all hopes of preserving British economic and political interests in the Arab […]

British policy towards Israel, the Arab states and the US, Foreign Office note, July 1970

Percy Cradock, Foreign and Commonwealth Office planning staff, to Sir Denis Greenhill, Permanent Under-Secretary, FCO, 24 July 1970 ‘We start from the fact that our economic interests in the Arab world greatly outweigh those in Israel. It would be reasonable to expect that our policy should reflect this fact. It does not do so for […]

Ten year’s of New Labour’s arms exports: A Review

By Mark Curtis Reviewing British arms exports for the ten-year period under New Labour, the figures speak for themselves: – The UK has exported £45 billion worth of arms around the world since 1997. – Over £110m of military equipment has gone to Israel, throughout a period of offensive operations in the occupied territories and […]