Douglas Carswell's Blog

Good riddance

It is a good thing that HMG is expelling the Tripoli regime's few remaining diplomats from London. 

We should now examine how and why diplomatic links were ever re-established with the Gaddafi government following the murder of a British police officer in 1984 and the Lockerbie atrocity in 1988. 

Did any corporate interests lobby to restore good relations?  What methods did they use?  What role did former British diplomats in the pay of big oil companies play?  Who at the Foreign Office took these key decisions and who might have influenced them?

These questions are not simply of interest to future historians.  Rather they explain a gross strategic failure of UK diplomacy.  Somehow our Foreign Office establishment managed to put us on the wrong side, sucking up to a tyrant and against democracy.  We need to examine how this happened and ensure those responsible never get the chance to influence, or perhaps in some instances buy, UK foreign policy again.

We might also like to examine the extent to which our foreign policy towards other countries - such as Saudi Arabia - are subject to similarly nefarious influences.

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