The government is no longer planning to use its Brexit trade deals to spread and enforce human rights around the world, a leaked letter from the international trade secretary has revealed.
Writing to MPs Anne-Marie Trevelyan said human rights would be kept out of trade talks and that she believed “free trade agreements are not generally the most effective or targeted tool to advance human rights issues”.
The dramatic change in approach comes as the UK tries to sign a deal with Gulf countries including Saudi Arabian, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – all renowned for their poor human rights records.
In October last year Ms Trevelyan told the House of Commons that trade “will not come at the expense of human rights” and that talks on free trade agreements would create an “opportunity to open discussions” on such issues.
And as early as October 2020 Liz Truss, who is expected to become prime minister next month, gave a landmark speech in which she said the UK’s “values-driven” trade policy would be used to “spread our fundamental values” like human rights around the world.
But cracks have started to appear in the approach and in June this year MPs raised concerns after the government quietly dropped “human rights” and “rule of law” from a list of proposed objectives in trade deal talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
This week the international trade secretary wrote back to the MPs and spelled out a very different policy from the one the government has previously advocated for.
“The UK is a leading advocate for human rights around the world and the government remains committed to the promotion of universal human rights,” she said in the letter dated 23 August and seen by The Independent.
“The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office leads this effort within the UK Government. This is undertaken separately to negotiations on free trade agreements.
“While aspects of trade policy can provide the opportunity to address other issues in bilateral relationships, free trade agreements are not generally the most effective or targeted tool to advance human rights issues.”
The revelation provoked an angry reaction from human rights campaigners, who said ditching the protection from free trade deals would give succour to autocrats.
“This response by the Trade Secretary confirms our biggest fears that human rights will not even be paid lip service in the upcoming trade agreement with the Gulf,” said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
“The government shamelessly refuses to include even a mention of human rights in their trade deal, despite dealing with some of the most abusive states on the planet.
“The bottom line is Gulf dictators will be confidently reassured that when it comes to business with the UK, human rights will be left completely off the table.”
Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, said the government was “sending a terrible message to other countries” about “how little the UK appears to value human rights and freedoms when trade deals are at stake”.
“Any notion that trade can somehow be cordoned off from human rights issues ignores the grubby reality that multinational corporations all too often profit from lax labour laws, conditions amounting to modern slavery, and widespread environmental harm,” he said.
“Once again, we appear to have a trade policy which runs counter to the UK’s stated foreign policy goals of championing openness and free speech, reducing conflict and environmental degradation, and ending modern forms of slavery.”
Many free trade agreements around the world, such as the one the UK signed with the EU, include provisions to ensure countries holding basic standards of human rights – with formal clauses to make them legally enforceable.
As well their ethical dimension, the clauses are also intended to make sure countries cannot undercut each other by violating rights and exploitation – for instance with de facto slave labour.
