Britain's greatest allies: how to repair relations in the Persian Gulf

The past, present, and future of Anglo-Arab relations

Britain is in a difficult geopolitical position with a diminished stature on the global stage. It is trapped between a European Union which demands stifling regulatory alignment in return for co-operation and a United States which greedily eyes our financial services sector (one of the few productive parts of the British economy) for relocation to New York. It makes sense, in this context, that successive British governments have sought to look for alternative trade and development partners — in particular, to China, a relationship which, while potentially productive and certainly worth pursuing, carries its own very different set of difficulties. Given the risks we will face in deepening ties with any of these major powers, now is perhaps an ideal time to evaluate options among the second rank in the world — perhaps the most promising of which lie in the Persian Gulf.

In the overall hierarchy of Britain’s diplomatic priorities over the last fifty years, the Gulf states have always been high on the agenda, but never at the top, for obvious reasons. Whilst enhancing and managing relationships with America and Europe inevitably had to be the main priority for recent governments, as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, which contains Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman) grew in wealth and influence over recent decades there was a window of opportunity to leverage the very considerable British soft power that carries weight in the region to renew our relationships with the Gulf monarchies and unlock significant trade and investment benefits for our increasingly weakened economy. To the casual observer, Britain’s relationships with the GCC might appear to be some of our strongest, but if you dig beneath the surface you discover a litany of missed opportunities and an increasingly sorry state of affairs where countries who were once desperate to do more business with Britain and treated us as a cherished ally now view us as an unreliable partner with a languishing economy, plagued by crime and Islamism.

The establishment of the British sphere of influence in the Gulf largely dates back to the early nineteenth century. In direct contrast to the Sykes–Picot-imposed British control of the southern Levant and Mesopotamia that followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, Britain’s Gulf influence came about as a result of direct requests from tribal rulers dotted along the Gulf coast seeking protection against land and maritime threats in the region. Beginning with the General Maritime Treaty of 1820 followed by the Perpetual Maritime Truce of 1853, Britain established a system of protectorates in the region encompassing all modern Gulf states, barring Saudi Arabia. Though their location was strategically significant for the protection of Britain’s regional trade routes, the protectorates offered the Empire minimal commercial benefit with economies largely rooted in subsistence fishing and pearl diving, and the discovery of oil still many decades away. They fell heavily under the British Raj’s sphere of influence, even using the Indian Rupee as its de facto currency up until the 1960s, and for much of their history existed merely as ports of call on voyages along the lucrative Far East trade routes.

The system was driven by a series of ‘Exclusivity Agreements’, where local tribal leaders ceded control of their foreign policy to London in exchange for defence against external aggression from the Arabian interior and Persia. The success and longevity of the system deep into the era of post-WW2 de-colonisation relied on Britain’s willingness to deliver its duties as a protector, the constant provision of experts to aid local development, as well as a deep-seated respect for and understanding of Arab culture by British administrators that allowed them to navigate the complex tribal dynamics of the region and consistently keep local elites on side. Even after independence, the Gulf remained one of the few regions of the former Empire where British soft power was not only endured but actively cultivated by local elites, with Britishness celebrated as a sign of high status.

By 1971 the last of the protectorates had gained independence, driven heavily by Macmillan’s decision (endorsed by Wilson) to reduce Britain’s over-stretched overseas commitments in light of Britain’s struggling economic situation, as well the Wilson Government’s ideological commitment to continue on the path of post-war decolonisation. Unlike many independence movements across the Empire, Britain’s withdrawal was actively resisted and opposed by several of the Gulf states who preferred the continuity of British protection and recognised the value that British advisors could provide in developing the infrastructure to exploit the newly discovered oil and gas deposits that would soon transform these countries from irrelevant strips of sand into the skyscraper dominated theme parks we see today.

In the decades that followed, successive UK governments adopted a generally consistent approach to diplomacy and business with the Gulf monarchies, appealing to their inherent Anglophilia with platitudes of ‘partnership’ and ‘friendship’ to make the occasional fighter jet sale or to get some cheap barrels of oil when needed, whilst ultimately focusing attention elsewhere and allowing the Chinese, Americans, and French to gain preferred partner status and exploit the opportunities for trade and investment that the rapid growth of the Gulf states in the twenty-first century created. Britain’s inherent hubris and inflated perception of its global diplomatic standing has meant that recent governments have repeatedly failed to recognise that several Gulf states have transitioned from mere junior partners to middle powers with growing influence on both the regional and global stages, rendering our outdated approach to dealing with the Gulf fundamentally misguided and often harmful to our interests.

Nothing typifies this failure more clearly than the current state of our relationship with the United Arab Emirates, once arguably our closest ally in the region. Our present relationship with perhaps the GCC’s most successful economy has hit rock-bottom in recent years. This has been driven by several different factors. Well-meaning attempts by the Sunak and Starmer governments to repair ties have completely failed, and in some cases have been actively detrimental — and it seems that under the current government the chance of reconciliation is close to zero. The majority of mainstream British commentators who have covered the ongoing rift have failed to identify the principal reason why it emerged: namely, our approach to the Muslim Brotherhood, a contentious organisation that combines outwardly peaceful political and social activism with a more aggressive Islamist agenda, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the majority of the Gulf monarchies. In the eyes of Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed (MbZ), the Muslim Brotherhood is an existential threat to the stability of their rule and if left unchecked would take over the country and likely execute the royal family.

This is a view shared by the majority of Gulf monarchs, but MbZ has emerged as perhaps the most vocal advocate for their curtailment in the region. Despite acknowledging that the Muslim Brotherhood itself is not a major political force in the UK, even despite our large Muslim population and clear links between the organisation and British charities, mosques, and Islamic community organisations, the UAE has consistently lobbied Britain to proscribe the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. This was presented to the government at the time not as a request but as an expectation given our prior security commitments to the UAE.

However, successive British governments have resisted this pressure and displayed a sense of indifference on a matter of immense significance to the Emirati leadership. A likely flawed 2015 review conducted by the Home Office found no direct evidence of Muslim Brotherhood terrorist or subversive activity within Britain, leading to a refusal to proscribe the group, a decision the Emirati leadership views as an unforgivable betrayal of our security partnership. The Emirati leadership see our leaders as weak, and feel that Britain has reached a point where it doesn’t just turn a blind eye to the threat of political Islam, but actively cosies up to it so as not to inflame ‘community tensions’. The friction caused by our attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood was further exacerbated by the British government’s decision to block the sale of the Telegraph in 2024 to RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund. While the official reason for the block was a new legislative ban on foreign state ownership of the British press, the move was perceived in Abu Dhabi as a targeted, ideologically motivated insult by a weak and unreliable British government.

Whilst tensions over the Muslim Brotherhood and the Telegraph sale triggered the rapid deterioration of bilateral relations in recent years, there is another deeply personal factor potentially motivating MbZ’s overall distrust of Britain: in diplomatic circles it is often acknowledged that MbZ hated the time he spent growing up in Britain and holds a deep and unyielding resentment towards the British elite, motivated by consistent bullying during his time as a cadet at Sandhurst. It’s impossible to quantify the extent to which this resentment drives the diplomatic issues of today, but ultimately this demonstrates the personalistic political culture of the Gulf, where the personal convictions and attitudes of leaders can define bilateral relationships for decades. Statesmen of the past understood this and were significantly more effective at navigating relationships with Gulf leaders. Unfortunately, the average contemporary British politician does business with the Gulf utilising the same generic template that is used to build relationships with a European or NATO ally. Until our leaders adapt their approach, attempts to forge stronger bilateral ties with the Gulf will inevitably fail.

One of the most significant elements of British soft power in the region has been the enduring prestige attached to British education and military training by Gulf elites. For decades, it has been a de facto rite of passage for the princes of the Gulf royal families to be shipped off to a British boarding school followed by a year at Sandhurst. This spawned several generations of devoutly Anglophile GCC leaders with a flawless grasp of English, connections across the British establishment, and an innate understanding of British social norms and cultural quirks. Gulf rulers have often remarked that growing up they had a better grasp of the English language and culture than Arabic. In the extreme case of Sultan Qaboos of Oman (r.1970-2020), the perception that he’d become too Westernised during his time in Britain saw him being placed under house arrest by his father, though he was later installed on the throne by a British-backed coup in 1970.

This cultural anchor now seems to be fading, however. The next generation of Crown Princes and heirs have largely been educated either in-country or elsewhere. Whilst the British public school system and our military academies continue to see a steady stream of Gulf students drawn from elite families and minor branches of the royal families, the ‘finishing’ of future leaders has firmly shifted towards the USA. This may have been driven somewhat by a perception that American universities offer a more ‘technological’ and ‘business-focused’ education that is more valuable for countries that are chasing rapid growth and industrialisation, though will have also been driven by a recognition amongst Gulf elites that closer cultural affinity and ties with the USA offers significantly more value to their interests than ties with Britain. The UAE went one step further and recently removed British universities from its list of approved institutions for state-funded scholarships for Emirati citizens, citing concerns about ‘ideological exposure’ to political Islam on British campuses.

Despite these challenges, British soft power remains remarkably resilient in the Gulf in comparison to our other former colonial territories. Unlike in India or parts of Africa, there is no widespread anti-colonial animosity towards Britain in the region. This is largely because the British role was never one of direct administrative rule, but a maritime and defensive umbrella that allowed local rulership structures to persist. Previous generations of the British establishment, raised on the legend of Lawrence of Arabia, reciprocally possessed a deep fascination and respect for traditional Arab culture which allowed them to more easily ingratiate themselves to Gulf leaders. However, simply relying solely on this historical goodwill is no longer sufficient when developing relationships with leaders or closing major export and investment deals.

The assumption that the Gulf is a guaranteed market for high-value British defence exports has been undermined by the realities of the twenty-first century arms trade and the misguided diplomatic priorities of successive governments. While the Al-Yamamah contracts with Saudi Arabia and Typhoon deals across the Gulf were once described as the ‘biggest UK sales of anything to anyone’, our consistent failure to modernise and invest in our armed forces will make Britain increasingly uncompetitive at a time of immense global innovation in defence technology. In time, this will have a profound effect on Britain’s aerospace industry and threaten one of the key industries that Britain still actually does quite well in.

The most prominent challenge in this area is from the American F-35, which has now proven its effectiveness in operation against the Gulf’s most significant regional threat, Iran. The F-35 offers capabilities that the BAE Systems’ Typhoon, the current crown jewel in Britain’s arms sale portfolio, simply cannot match. Although the UK is a ‘first-tier partner’ in the F-35 program, it does not own the intellectual property to export the jet independently and UK content in the jet is minimal. Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia now view possession of the F-35 as the ultimate symbol of military strength and signifier of partnership with the United States, and have been aggressively lobbying Washington for the capability. In cases where the US restricts access to the F-35, the Gulf states no longer automatically turn to Britain as they once did; instead, they often turn to France. The Rafale jet has been an immense export success for the French government in the Gulf, with sales often backed up by ‘sweeteners’ that the British government is simply too bureaucratic to provide, such as favourable landing slots for the Gulf airlines at major French airports or a more flexible approach to technology transfer and export licensing.

Saudi Arabia is somewhat of an outlier in the Gulf in that it was never under direct British control and therefore does not have the same level of historic British cultural affinity as its GCC neighbours. Whilst the UAE surpasses it in terms of industrial and technological development, tourism, and state efficiency, Saudi’s vast oil wealth places the Kingdom at the gravitational center of the Gulf, and its Vision 2030 project, significant investment in infrastructure, industrialisation, and the construction of mega-projects represents perhaps the most ambitious engineering project in modern history (despite recent setbacks suggesting that Mohammed bin Salman may have bitten off more than he could chew). For Britain, the Kingdom is essential not only for sustaining our defence and aerospace industries but as a source of consistent revenue for our construction, energy, and consulting sectors. However, we have repeatedly fallen into a ‘middle power trap’ when dealing with Riyadh, utilising what limited diplomatic leverage we have to lecture the Saudis on social issues and acting as a moral arbiter whilst neglecting elements of our relationship that could actually lead to us getting a larger share of Saudi oil wealth.

Britain must also accept that it cannot compete with the US (especially under Trump) in offering security guarantees and regional mediation and instead forge partnerships in other areas. In the eyes of the Saudis, the US remains the only Western power capable of providing the overarching regional containment of Iran and leadership on Gaza that Riyadh requires. Britain’s role must therefore be more targeted, focusing on developing commercial relationships in the areas where it can claim genuine expertise with the Gulf nations that matter the most, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To do this, London needs to stop trying to copy what the Americans are doing in a watered down form and abandon the illusion that we can play a Lawrence of Arabia-type role in regional mediation whilst simultaneously being a top tier ally to all GCC states.

The UK’s increasingly strong relationship with Qatar has at times created significant friction with other Gulf partners, particularly the UAE. As our relationship with the UAE declined, our government increasingly began to prioritise Qatar, won over by the immense Qatari investment in British infrastructure, property and industry that started flooding in over the last couple of decades. Qatar’s ‘friend to all’ foreign policy and attempts to punch above its weight diplomatically, which includes hosting the political office of Hamas, maintaining close ties with Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, and more recently mediation over Gaza, has made it a pariah at times within the GCC, eventually resulting in the 2017-2021 blockade.

The British government’s misguided attempt to remain neutral during this blockade, while understandable in order to protect the flow of Qatari money pouring into London, was seen in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh as a lack of strategic resolve and further evidence of British indifference to the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam. By failing to pick a side, Britain arguably lost influence with all three members of the ‘GCC-3’ (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar). Whilst this strategy of neutrality undoubtedly protected our relationship with Qatar, the decision to withhold overt and public support for them in order to protect our relationships with the Saudis and the Emiratis meant that Britain failed to generate any meaningful goodwill with the Qatari leadership, unlike more explicit backers, such as Turkey. Since the blockade, Doha and Ankara have entered into a deep strategic and military alliance, and there is a perception held by Qatari political and business elites that they owe a debt to the Turks for their support which has helped promote Turkey to preferred partner status ahead of the UK on major trade and export deals which in the past would have naturally gone our way. Consequently, British firms are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for major infrastructure and defence contracts in Qatar against Turkish competitors.

British attempts to meddle in regional affairs and play a role in Qatari-led mediation, such as the Gaza peace process, have often proved to be purely symbolic. While our ministers often appear on the news claiming to play a ‘key role behind the scenes’, the actual negotiations are dominated by Washington, Doha, and Cairo. This highlights the core problem of modern British diplomacy in the Gulf: a refusal to acknowledge that its resources are now simply spread too thin to maintain a significant presence in every regional crisis and that our global standing no longer affords us an automatic seat at the table.

A frequent trope repeated by the British press, to the point that it defines public perception of Britain’s Gulf relationships, is that we are overly reliant on Gulf oil. This is simply not true. Imports from Norway and the United States satisfy the vast majority of British oil and gas needs and we have imported very little oil or gas from the Gulf in recent years. Imports of Qatari LNG have been limited to ‘swing’ capacity during periods of extreme market volatility such as in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The true economic value of the Gulf to Britain now lies in access to capital and investment, not hydrocarbons. As Britain has seen its growth falter and investment from Europe and America slowly dry up, the sovereign wealth funds of the GCC have still continued to provide a steady stream of capital — though if Britain continues to block investments on ideological grounds, as seen in the Telegraph case, it risks a capital flight and relegation to the status of an unreliable investment partner.

A Reform government offers an opportunity for a potential reset for Anglo-Gulf relations, particularly with the UAE. Farage’s visits to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in recent months were shrewd moves, and he should continue to invest in these relationships in the run up to 2029. The political turmoil in Britain of recent years has prevented any strong long-term relationships from forming between any of the last few Prime Ministers and Gulf leaders. One of the reasons why the French are now doing so well in the region diplomatically and commercially is as a direct result of Macron’s uninterrupted nine years as President which have allowed him to build genuinely productive and trusted relationships with his counterparts. By doing the leg work now, Farage is placing himself in an ideal position to rapidly repair the rift between the UK and the UAE after 2029. Its also clear that a Reform government would be naturally more aligned with the UAE’s core values: pro-business, pro-US, pro-Israel, and anti-political Islam.

Reform should also commit to the UAE’s primary demand, the proscription of the Muslim Brotherhood, and seek Emirati support and expertise on things they clearly do well in: countering Islamism, tackling crime, and deportations. Furthermore, Reform should take note of the UAE’s track record of supporting and funding right-wing movements and media in the likes of France, and not block attempts by the Emiratis to do some of the heavy lifting on shifting the narrative on contentious issues that take up too much political capital. As Reform pursues its domestic agenda, the UAE could even become something of a ‘deportation hub’ for illegal migrants from countries that most heavily resist taking their citizens back, fulfilling the role that Rwanda was once lined up for. The UAE has the existing operational capacity that the previous Rwandan scheme lacked, as well as established infrastructure for large-scale migrant detention and a proven track record of rapid, mass deportations of foreign workers and criminals.

A Reform government should also firmly mandate the Foreign Office to abandon the moralising and lecturing on social issues and human rights that has taken up far too much diplomatic resource in Gulf countries under recent Conservative and Labour governments and recognise that whilst the UK cannot truly compete with the US and China on regional security and trade, it can gain ground simply by being a more reliable and ideologically consistent partner.

Britain can no longer afford to be a ‘juggler’ in the Gulf, attempting to forge strong diplomatic and commercial ties with all states simultaneously. The current resources of the British state are simply insufficient to maintain the level of high-intensity engagement required to keep all six GCC members as true ‘allies’, so a Reform Gulf strategy should prioritise and pick a side if needed even if that harms relationships elsewhere.

Assuming that the current inter-GCC tension over Yemen settles, the primary focus should be on UAE and Saudi Arabia. These are the two states with the demographic weight, economic ambition, and regional sway to truly impact British interests. A rapid end to the rift with the UAE by proscribing the Muslim Brotherhood and opening the floodgates to Emirati sovereign investment is the first step. With Saudi Arabia, Farage should spend the next few years courting the Al-Sauds in the same way he is building relationships within the Emirati system. Dealings with the Saudis should be primarily business focused, portraying Britain as a valuable commercial partner to help the Kingdom deliver its ambitious national vision. Most importantly, Reform should not get hung up on Israel, or on other regional matters such as Yemen or Iran; let the Americans do the heavy lifting on this.

If Reform can get it right on Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it would demonstrate to the wider-GCC (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman) that Britain is once again a reliable partner to the Gulf and these smaller states would potentially be more inclined to actively seek out similar partnerships and deals without us needing to actively pursue them, though these should be low down the priority list and not be a significant drain on the Reform government’s limited diplomatic resource that will inevitably need to be deployed elsewhere. Whilst Britain’s approach to the Muslim Brotherhood ended up destroying our relationship with the UAE, it is not a given that proscribing the organisation would automatically sink relations with Qatar, since it is already under immense pressure from the US and the UAE to reduce its public backing of the organisation in exchange for enhanced security and business partnerships. Intervention by Britain would therefore not necessarily be seen as a game changer in Doha. A Reform government push to court the UAE and Saudi Arabia would likely frustrate the Qataris, but is unlikely to lead to a mass capital flight or diplomatic deterioration. Like with the other GCC states, Reform should capitalise on the opportunities that come its way from Qatar, but the relationships with the UAE and Saudi Arabia should be the priority.

The unfortunate truth is that the turbulent geo-politics of the Gulf means that many of the suggestions made in this article could be irrelevant by 2029. All it would take is some fresh bit of drama between Saudi, Qatar and the UAE over Yemen, Iran, Israel, Turkey, or Syria, and the regional dynamics will shift all over again. But regardless of the specific situation in a few years time, the general principles upon which diplomatic endeavours in the Gulf should be based remain as described. The recent history of Anglo-Gulf relations exposes several of the fundamental flaws of modern British diplomacy, and how inept the government and the Foreign Office have become at exploiting low hanging fruit in a region which maintains genuine affection for Britain even as our international standing has declined.

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This article was written by Lauren of Arabia, a Pimlico Journal contributor who works as a British diplomat in the Persian Gulf. Have a pitch? Send it to submissions@pimlicojournal.co.uk.

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