While negotiating a trade deal with Gulf states, the government has quietly dropped “human rights” and the “rule of law” from its list of objectives.
The two items were included in a consultation, published in October, but did not make it into the final list published this week.
This has not gone well with civil society groups, with the TUC and Amnesty International among organisations to sound the alarm.
This week, International trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan met representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh to begin negotiations with the six-nation bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE.
Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow international trade secretary, said: “Yet again, we have a government acting as though human rights and the rule of law are optional extras, to be discarded at will, rather than principles and values that are fundamental to what we stand for as a country.
“It is wrong, it is immoral, and it is doing untold damage to our reputation around the world.”
