Ousted Ambassador Makes Uzbekistan Key Election Issue in Britain

Britain's parliamentary election campaign is heating up, with politicians grappling with the familiar themes of the welfare state and the economy. In the northern English constituency of Blackburn, though, Uzbekistan has emerged as an unlikely central election issue, as Britain's ousted ambassador to Tashkent, Craig Murray, challenges his former boss, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Murray is running on an independent ticket, and is making British foreign policy towards Uzbekistan and Iraq the central issues of his campaign. While Murray believes he is on the right side of the issues, he admits his chances of defeating Straw seem slim. The Labor Party has held the Blackburn constituency for the last 60 years, and in the last general election, Straw dominated the Blackburn race by winning 53 percent of the votes cast.

Ordinary voters "are not really that interested in Uzbekistan," Murray recently told a EurasiaNet correspondent in an interview. However, a large percentage of Blackburn's voters are Muslims, and Murray hopes to tap into their dissatisfaction over Straw's support of the global "war on terror" and detention-without-trail of co-religionists in Britain. Furthermore, the local Labor party has been hit by accusations of corruption, with one official imprisoned in early April for ballot-fraud in local elections. A leaked Labor memo suggests that the party leadership regards the seat as at-risk, and early opinion polls have shown the party's lead narrowing. Whatever happens on election day, May 5, Murray has ensured that Britain's uncomfortable alliance with Uzbekistan will receive public scrutiny.

Having served as Britain's envoy to Uzbekistan from 2002-04, Murray is perhaps best known for his outspoken criticism of the human rights practices of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's administration. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In a speech in October 2002, he broke with diplomatic protocol by publicly stating that Uzbekistan was