James Forsyth James Forsyth

What values do we share with Saudi Arabia?

First we had the Saudi King declaring that Britain had not done enough to tackle the threat of terrorism which may be true but considering Saudi Arabia’s continuing role in exporting extremism, the King might want to consider the log in his own kingdom before going looking for specs in other countries. Now we have an even more breathtaking quote from the Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells:

Mr Howells told a conference ahead of a state visit by Saudi leader King Abdullah that the two states could unite around their “shared values”.

I can see the national interest case for the relationship with Saudi Arabia but I really can’t see what values Britain and Saudi Arabia share. Indeed, as this exhaustive Policy Exchange report shows a large amount of the extremist material in British Mosques comes from Saudi Arabia.

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