At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Theresa May pushed back hard against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s attacks on Britain’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia.
The issue is relevant in light of a visit to Britain this week by Saudi crown prince and soon-to-be-king Mohammed bin Salman. Corbyn lamented that “despite much talk of reform,” the Saudi government continues to imprison political dissidents. And he added that “As she makes her arms sales pitch, will she also call on the crown prince to halt the shocking abuse of human rights in Saudi Arabia.”
While there are serious human rights issues in Saudi Arabia, here we see vintage Jeremy “holier than thou” Corbyn. Corbyn — whose one-liners hide the fact that this is a politician who has taken thousands of dollars from the Iranian government’s propaganda channel — sucks up to Russian agents in Britain, opposes NATO, calls Hezbollah his “friends,” and supports the socialist starvation kingdom of Venezuela.
Put simply, Corbyn is not a credible commentator on human rights issues of any kind.
Fortunately, Theresa May was undeterred.
“Labour backbenchers from sedentary positions are shouting ‘shame’,” May observed, “can I just say to those backbenchers that the link that we have with Saudi Arabia is historic, it is an important one and it has saved the lives of potentially hundreds of people in this country.”
Here May is referring to the thousands of British jobs that rely on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Britain’s intelligence relationship with Riyadh. That relationship has helped prevent numerous al Qaeda and ISIS attacks, hence the reference to saving British lives.
And May ended her response with a pointed rejoinder to the male Labour leader: “I welcome the fact that the Saudi crown prince will be sitting down as the guest of a female prime minister.”
May’s is the right approach.
Under bin Salman’s leadership, Saudi Arabia is pursuing bold and positive political and economic reform. Just as it makes sense for the U.S. to support these efforts while criticizing bin Salman’s excesses, so too does it make sense for the British to do the same.
May embraces foreign policy realism, Corbyn embraces fealty to Tehran.
