Will The Saudis Cancel The Al Yamamah Deal?
Forget about cash for peerages, ignore the debate about when Tony Blair will stand down as Prime Minister; a far bigger matter in his in-tray is what to do about Saudi Arabia. The Desert Kingdom is not only Britain’s leading ally in the Middle East but a major trading partner.
The 1985 Al Yamamah arms deal was our biggest export deal ever - worth £40bn to BAE Systems and its partners. But it is being threatened by an SFO investigation into alleged BAE kickbacks to Saudi officials, which has now embroiled the Saudi royal family.
The Saudis could cancel a £10bn contract for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons unless the SFO backs off. Meanwhile, the French are pushing for the contract to be awarded to their Rafale fighter instead.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. If Al Yamamah falls apart, 50,000 jobs would be at risk and Britain’s largest hi-tech manufacturer severely damaged - perhaps fatally. That seems a heavy price to pay for bribing a few foreigners in order to land a valuable contract. After all, everyone else does it.
We are routinely told that this is a slippery slope: if we give in to the Saudis, what’s to stop President Putin from stopping our gas supplies if we put a Russian on trial for poisoning Alexander Litvinenko?
But this case doesn’t have to set a precedent: we’re surely at liberty to choose the circumstances in which we agree to be successfully blackmailed in the national interest. The real issue is proportionality: given what’s at stake, there’s an argument for choosing pragmatism over cherished principles.
The political and commercial reasons for calling off the SFO are powerful. Many argue that the 2001 Crime and Security Act, which made it a criminal offence for a British firm to bribe foreign officials, was misguided. And the thought of losing out to less scrupulous nations is galling. Yet against these arguments stands the primacy of maintaining the rule of law.
In any case, that doesn’t excuse the foot-dragging that has been going on at the SFO. It has the right to investigate this case, and the Government cannot be seen to interfere at the behest of a foreign ally. But a secretive inquiry that goes on indefinitely is the worst of all worlds.
The ball is in the SFO’s court: it should either prosecute BAE or drop the case forthwith.