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by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 22 July 2018 How does a British government respond when an allied state invades another territory with the backing of jihadists, overthrows a democratic experiment and consolidates an occupation? Judging by what Turkey is doing in the Afrin district of northern Syria, the answer is: by supporting […]

by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 3 July 2018   Three years ago on 26 June, a 23-year-old Tunisian armed with a machine gun mowed down 38 tourists at a beach hotel in the resort of Port El Kantaoui. Thirty British tourists were among the dead in the worst attack on Britons since […]

Published in Middle East Eye, 14 June 2018 by Mark Curtis   Seven years on from the British-led NATO war in Libya in 2011 to remove leader Muammar Gaddafi, the country remains riddled with conflict and lacks effective governance. And one year on from terrorist attacks in the UK whose perpetrators are linked to that […]

by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 5 June 2018   Britain has a special relationship with Israel that is little recognised in the mainstream media but unmissable in light of the killings in Gaza. With more than 110 protesters dead, Britain is in effect defending Israeli actions. The British government has not, as […]

Paper is an assessment of the relative strengths of the powers. “The UK [sic] influence and capacity for independent action has been greatly weakened in the last decade by the repeated sterling crises: if the UK could maintain a strong external financial position that would much improve its relative position within the West… UK is […]

“I suppose that the ultimate policy aim (to put it rather grandiloquently) is to conduct our affairs so as to maximise the capacity of the United Kingdom to influence the course of world history in a way satisfactory to us. At least, I take this to be the object for any country with pretensions to […]

“If the EEC developed effectively as one unit, it could readily by the early 1970s be an economic (and political) unit of the same general order of magnitude in population and gross national products as the United States in the mid 1950s… Such a consolidation of West European resources would represent a major change in […]

Notes that a paper was circulated to posts in August. “Several comments emphasised that, as our power to intervene militarily in various parts of the world was reduced, the importance of our non-military effort overseas particularly such aspects as information work and diplomatic persuasion would significantly increase”. Paper then notes seven proposals on aid. “(i) […]

Encloses a paper which “attempts to expand the Secretary of State’s thoughts on the sources and means of influence in the modern world”, whose contents “have been generally approved”. Paper: “Sources and means of influence in the modern world”, July 1968 “It is this distribution of our economic interests, deriving in many cases from our […]

Foreign Office paper endorsed by the Foreign Secretary and circulated for information. “The basic aims of our overseas policy are peace, prosperity and freedom for Britain. They are not divisible. International instability prejudices our prosperity as well as our freedom… The scene for the conduct of external policy has been revolutionised not only by sophisticated […]