Keir Starmer is being urged to speak up for human rights and push for cooperation over a Middle East peace deal when he travels to Saudi Arabia next month, amid concerns on Labour’s left that his efforts to attract investment will dominate the trip.
The prime minister’s visit is seen as his latest attempt to secure the inward investment necessary for the economic growth that is the central aim of his government. It is expected that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, will also visit London next year.
Starmer once accused his predecessor Boris Johnson of “going cap in hand from dictator to dictator” before the then Conservative prime minister’s own trip to the kingdom in 2022, which was touted as an attempt to become less reliant on Russian energy.
However, Starmer will head to the Gulf state with his new government requiring significant capital to fund its plans for further green and nuclear energy.
Diplomats also regard Saudi Arabia as important in helping to secure a sustainable peace in Gaza. Labour figures are pressing Starmer to priorit ise the call for peace. “The next two months are critical to influencing president-elect Trump’s peace plan,” said Dan Carden, a Labour MP on the foreign affairs select committee.
“The UK has to work urgently and closely with key regional allies including Saudi. The offer the UK can make to President Trump should include the UK and Saudi playing a leading role in the difficult work of peace negotiations.”
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose 2018 murder is believed by US intelligence to have been ordered by Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photograph: Emrah Gürel/AP
Others want guarantees that Starmer’s quest for investment does not drown out the human rights concerns in the kingdom.
Prince Mohammed is believed by US intelligence to have ordered the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have been killed in Yemen during years of fighting, though a ceasefire has largely held since it expired in 2022.
Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, said Starmer’s expertise in human rights law meant the issue should remain “integral to who he is”. He added: “There should be a couple of items on the agenda. One will be their human rights record domestically. The second will be the issue of Yemen. Third will be oil production, and where they’re investing their sovereign wealth fund around the world.”
James Jennion, co-executive director of the Labour Campaign for Human Rights, said that while there was broad support for the government’s drive to improve living standards and the economy, it was “vital to ensure that rights are not sidelined in the UK’s international engagement”.
John McDonnell, a senior figure on the left currently suspended from Labour after voting against the government on an amendment to scrap the two-child benefit limit, said he was concerned about the Saudi trip. “Of course we want economic relations with a whole range of countries, but at the same time we have to be prime advocates across the world in standing up for human rights. Trips to pander to governments that have such a level of abuse of human rights, and particularly with regard to what’s happening in Yemen, we have to be extremely wary.”
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Their comments come amid murmurings of discontent on Labour’s left after Starmer praised the controversial investment company BlackRock following a meeting with the giant asset manager last week.
It is facing a complaint at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for allegedly contributing to environmental and human rights abuses around the world through its investments in agribusiness.
“They’re trapped by their own spiel on growth and making that the sole objective of their success or failure,” said a Labour MP. “It means that they have to sit next to some pretty unsavoury characters, from Trump through to the crown prince and BlackRock.”
Starmer said the meeting was part of a “clear-eyed determination to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people’s pockets which can only be achieved by working in close partnership with businesses and investors”.
