James Cleverly: The UK’s dictatorships man

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 16 May 2023 The foreign secretary claims his role is ‘defending democracy and freedom’ around the world. In fact, he’s Whitehall’s point man for backing several of the world’s most repressive regimes, as his own tweets show. When James Cleverly was reappointed foreign secretary last October, he tweeted he was “honoured” to […]

The UK’s 83 military interventions around the world since 1945

Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest The British military has used or threatened to use military force […]

UK spends millions training security forces to control Palestinians in West Bank and Lebanon

By Matt Kennard, Mark Curtis and Phil Miller, Declassified UK, 20 May 2021 British aid projects supporting Palestinian security forces appear to be as much about helping to stop threats to Israel, the occupying power, as they are about enhancing Palestinian state-building. Declassified reveals the UK has seven army and air force personnel in the West […]

Charles of Arabia: How Britain’s next king bolsters autocratic Gulf regimes

By Phil Miller and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 24 February 2021 The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has held 95 meetings with eight repressive monarchies in the Middle East since the ‘Arab Spring’ protests of 2011 threatened their power. Charles has played a key role in promoting £14.5-billion worth of UK arms exports […]

Britain’s seven covert wars: An Explainer

By Mark Curtis and Matt Kennard Declassified UK, 17 September 2019 The United Kingdom is fighting at least seven covert wars largely outside parliamentary or democratic oversight. The British government states that its policy on the covert wars it fights is “not to comment, and to dissuade others from commenting or speculating, about the operational […]

How Britain engaged in a covert operation to overthrow Assad

by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 25 April 2018 Some commentators in the British mainstream media believe the UK has “done nothing” in the war in Syria and lament the failure to help stop it. In fact, Britain has engaged in a covert operation with allies to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad for more than […]

Jordan: Declassified

Documents Jordan, 1957 (Mark Curtis files from the National Archives) Jordan, 1970-1 (Mark Curtis files from the National Archives) ‘US embassy cables: Prince Andrew hunts with Arab leaders’ (US Embassy Abu Dhabi, 3 June 2003) Articles Mark Curtis, Britain’s role in the war in Palestine, 1948 (Extract from Secret Affairs, 2012) ‘Jordan asked Nixon to attack […]

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 […]

Siding with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, 1957

This is an edited extract from Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam Mark Curtis In April 1957, a head-on clash developed between the twenty-two-year-old King Hussein of Jordan – a pillar of Western influence in the region since the assassination of his father, Abdullah, in 1952 – and the pro-Nasser socialist government under Prime […]