Thinking Across The Gulf

If Qatar is so singularly awful, then those saying so are presumably calling for the closure of the RAF and USAF bases there, and condemning Israel for normalising relations with the place? And just wait until they hear about Saudi Arabia.

Across the Gulf, are the Iranians plotting attacks on their dissidents in Britain? Probably. Again, like the Saudis, whose dress code for women, moreover, is a great deal stricter than the one in Iran, where 1500 protesters have not been sentenced to death, as has been falsely claimed this week. For that sort of thing, then you need to go to Saudi Arabia. Are you spotting a pattern here?

The regime in Qatar is monstrous, although if you cannot go three hours without alcohol, then you are the one with the problem. The regime in Iran is monstrous. The Iranian dissidents are monstrous, and no keener on us than their enemies at home are. We should never have endangered our own people by letting them in.

But nowhere else in the region, nowhere else in the world apart from a North Korea that at least refrains from inspiring, funding or directing terrorism on our streets, is as monstrous as Saudi Arabia, which inspires, funds and directs both that and all three main political parties in England, all four in Scotland.

We are heading for a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.