CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Ethics and politics
BY BILL KIRKMAN
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What happens when national interests clash with principles?
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PHOTO: AP
Uneasy spokesman: Lord Goldsmith, the U.K.'s Attorney General.
WHAT is the appropriate balance for a government to strike between ethical behaviour and the national interest? The purist answer, I would have said if asked this question a year ago, is that for any government which prides itself on setting and meeting high ethical standards, there is no distinction. Behaving ethically should reflect the national interest.
Not so sure now
I could not give the same answer now. The British government decided to call off a criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office into alleged corruption in an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The decision, for which Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, took full responsibility, was taken on the ground that it would not have been in the national interest for the inquiry to continue.
The background to the case included allegations of payment, over a period of many years, of millions of pound in bribes by the British defence firm, BAE Systems. In his explanation of the decision, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith — the government's senior law officer — argued that continuation of the investigation would have caused serious damage to the U.K.'s relations with Saudi Arabia, and would have undermined co-operation over Islamist terrorism, and produced serious consequences for national security. The Attorney General claimed that no weight had been given to economic interests. Given reports of a threat by the Saudi government to cancel an order for military jet aircraft if the investigation went ahead, this claim has been received with much scepticism.
As one would expect, the decision provoked much comment. The Guardian described it as "a shabby, shaming day" for the Prime Minister. The Daily Telegraph, to the contrary, welcomed it. In The Sunday Times, Simon Jenkins wrote that Lord Goldsmith might well feel "uncomfortable", as he had admitted, adding that the government had "crumpled" at what he called "this flick of blackmail" by the Saudi government. Will Hutton, a columnist in The Observer, suggested that Lord Goldsmith had one plausible excuse, namely that there would have been little hope of a successful prosecution to offset the international embarrassment.
Complex issue
The issue is not dead, because the British government's decision may be challenged in court. The U.K. is a signatory of the 1999 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Anti-Bribery Convention, and the head of the OECD working group on bribery indicated that "we need to ask the U.K. some questions".
It is clearly a complex and complicated matter. The variety of the reactions demonstrates that it is not seen as straightforward. It is clear that in the world of international business, political realities and ethical principles are often uneasy bed fellows. It is easy to understand the argument of those who claim that "if we did not do it, another country would".
Of course I appreciate the force of that, but I am most uneasy about it. One problem is that if, in certain circumstances, the national interest may be seen as overriding ethical principles, the question of deciding in which circumstances, and who makes that decision, becomes crucial.
A different perspective
Apply that to the rule of law, and the problem is highlighted. Who decides that it should be ignored? What circumstances would make such a decision right? Who should be above the rule of law?
To move the argument in this direction is neither unrealistic nor purely hypothetical. In parallel with the Saudi Arabia case another controversy has been running — the matter of the alleged sale of peerages. As part of the investigation by the police, the Prime Minister has been interviewed. This has been as a witness rather than as a suspect, but it is the first time that a British prime minister has been interviewed in a criminal investigation.
Whatever the outcome of the investigation, the controversy has made the funding of political parties seem murky and sleazy, and that is certainly not a good advertisement for democracy.
Slippery slope
That obviously matters to those of us who live in this democratic country. I would suggest that its importance is wider than that, because of the moral standing to which the U.K. lays claim internationally. In justifying its — often controversial — policies and actions, Britain assumes the moral high ground. Anything which leads that assumption to be questioned must weaken our international standing. There is certainly a case for questions on the domestic front because of the cash for peerages issue. The aborted arms deal investigation has raised questions internationally.
The really big question is whether the moral high ground may prove to be a slippery slope.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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