UK and Human Rights abroad

As you can see by reading this article that was published today on the BBC NEWS website,
The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has accused the UK government  of inconsistency in its dealings with other countries over human rights.

According to the BBC:

The committee accepted it was "inevitable" that there would be occasional conflicts between the UK's strategic, commercial or security-related interests and its human rights values and a "balance" had to be struck.

The report reads: "In our view, it would be in the government's interest for it to be more transparent in acknowledging that there will be contradictions in pursuing these interests while promoting human rights values.

The government's role should be publicly to set out and explain its judgements on how far to balance the two in particular cases, having taken into account the need to adapt policy according to local circumstances and developments."

You can find the full report (as well as FCO's response) here.

The 2011 report mentioned above focuses on the UK's (apparently inconsistent) dealings with Ukraine and Bahrain.

If you're interested in some historical context, the British government's 'inconsistency' in relation to the case of the Greek Colonels' regime is highlighted in my forthcoming book.

To give you an idea, this is from the conclusion of the first chapter (pp. 41-42):

"All in all, the British stance towards the dictatorship of the Colonels, during the first two years could be characterised as one of ambiguity.  

London hesitated in almost every decision it had to take, oscillating between the two poles of its policy: namely, (1) protecting its mainly commercial and strategic interests and its ‘special relationship’ with Washington, and (2) upholding human rights and promoting a return to democratic rule, basically through trying to influence the regime and sustaining some efforts of the opposition. The initial inertia of the Labour government soon changed to a pragmatic policy of establishing relations with the junta, without, however, appearing to be too close to Greece’s military dictators. The catalyst for this change were three events that took place in 1967; the Six Day War, the crisis in Cyprus, and the failed royal counter-coup. The first demonstrated Greece’s augmented significance as a NATO ally in a troubled region, the second proved to the British the value of keeping closer relations with the Greek leaders, and the third confirmed the consolidation of the regime. When 1968 came and Britain recognized the junta anew, it became clear that, despite some instances of criticism of the dictatorship -mainly for public consumption- London was willing to make use of ‘different tactics’ in order to safeguard its (chiefly commercial and strategic) interests vis-à-vis Greece. The impact of international events was once again decisive as the Prague Spring and increased Soviet naval activity in the Mediterranean were conducive to a reconsideration of British policy towards the Colonels and the adoption of a ‘business as usual’ approach, thus acting as a prelude to the new era of relations that was soon to follow."

House of Commons gaffe

Gordon Brown's slip of the tongue during PM questions, in which he said his government had 'saved the world', is reminiscent of a similar gaffe another British minister had made during the seven years of the junta's reign.

More specifically, the time was June 1973 and, while debating the British recognition of the Papadopoulos republican government, foreign secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home responded to a relevant question by James Callaghan.
Douglas-Home later in the same session asked to correct his slip of the tongue as he had picked up a phrase of Callaghan referring to the Colonels:

'I think I said he rightly called it "the illegal regime in Greece"'.

The statement was caught by opposition circles in London, with the European-Atlantic Action Committee on Greece publishing a rather mordant bulletin to comment on Whitehall's policy towards the Colonels:

'The indecent haste with which the British government recognised the newly declared Greek Republic on 13th June was a gratuitous favour to Papadopoulos and was rightly the subject of critical questioning in the House of Commons by the Opposition's Shadow Foreign Secretary. That the government felt some embarrasment over the decision was indicated by a revealing 'slip of tongue' made by Sir Alec Douglas-Home in referring to the Greek regime as "illegal"'.