Friday, March 26, 2021

Business before human rights

 The UK likes to play lip-service to the cause of human rights. Recently it earned kudos for imposing sanctions upon the Burmese generals and their businesses.

 However,  in a call to thousands of civil servants  on Tuesday, Britain's foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, had a very different message. 

“I squarely believe we ought to be trading liberally around the world. If we restrict it to countries with European convention on human rights-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future.”

The UK has imposed no sanctions on any Chinese official even though it has said three times that China is in breach of the Sino-British declaration on Hong Kong by introducing repressive security laws. Nor has it supported sanctions against China over the persecution of the Uyghurs. 

Civil servants rebuked for leak of Raab remarks on trade and human rights | Dominic Raab | The Guardian

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