David Pratt: Beyond time we knew about Saudi financial links with IS

First and foremost among these is: why is it that the UK Government has thus far steadfastly refused to publish the findings of an investigation into the foreign funding and support of jihadi groups authorised by former prime minister David Cameron?

Put on the spot over this very issue at a press conference a few days ago, the buffoon who passes for the Foreign Secretary was once again left floundering. “Look I … I … think err, you’re making a, err … valid point about the funding,” came Boris Johnson’s fumbled response, before engaging in an excruciatingly long list of empty platitudes.

“We’ve got to stop that,” Mr Johnson continued. “We do not have any confidential report of the kind that you described,” he insisted.

Pressed by Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick that the Government was suppressing its publication, Mr Johnson then replied that he would “dig it out and have a look at it”.

In all it was a scene reminiscent of a Sean Spicer fiasco at a White House press briefing and would have been worthy of satirical comedy had the issue at stake not been so crucially and painfully important.

What an insult to the victims and relatives of the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London was Mr Johnson’s spluttering and evasive response.

This crucial report that the Government is sitting on concerns revenue streams for extremist groups operating in the UK. In particular the document is believed to focus on Saudi Arabia, one country repeatedly highlighted by European leaders as a funding source for Islamist jihadists.

The report, we are told, is still “incomplete” even though it was supposed to have been published by the spring of last year.

Most people suspect, though, that the real reason for the delay in the document’s release is that it would probably be of considerable embarrassment to the Government, not least given that the Home Office itself has already admitted it includes “very sensitive” findings. Should it eventually be published, what an understatement that would be if funding for terrorist cells and networks operating in the UK were shown to be traceable to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that are supposed to be our allies.

Few doubt that this Saudi connection is the real nub of the matter. This much was pointed out in a recent letter by Tom Brake, foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats to Theresa May, who was home secretary at the time the inquiry was launched in 2016. As Mr Brake made clear, it’s no secret that Saudi Arabia, in particular, provides funding to hundreds of mosques in the UK, some espousing a hardline Wahhabist interpretation of Islam.

We know too that it’s often in these institutions that our own home-grown extremism takes root. From as early as the 1970s, with the help of funding from oil exports and other sources, Saudi charities started funding Wahhabi schools (madrassas) and mosques across the globe and the movement underwent massive growth. The UK is no exception. The American State Department has estimated that, over the past four decades, Riyadh has invested more than £6 billion into charitable foundations in an attempt to replace mainstream Sunni Islam with the harsh intolerance of its Wahhabism.

EU intelligence experts, too, say that 15 to 20 per cent of this has been diverted to al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (IS) group and other violent jihadists.

Perhaps the most powerful indication of Saudi’s financial links with IS revealed to date was in the cache of documents published by Wikileaks, including one diplomatic cable from the US State Department that flagged up concerns as far back as 2009.

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” the cable said.

More recently, other documents from the cache of emails leaked from the office of Hillary Clinton, who was US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, confirmed the same.

Knowing all of this, as the UK Government must, its cosiness with the Saudi kingdom, has been shameful. Just take Riyadh’s financial ties to Tory parliamentarians to begin with.

A cursory look at the register of financial interests published by the UK Parliament shows that some of the Saudi kingdom’s largesse has even come in the form of gifts.

These include, for example, a watch from the Saudi ambassador worth £1,950 for former foreign secretary Philip Hammond and a food basket from the Saudi Embassy for Tory MP Charlotte Leslie with an estimated value of £500.

Then there is the small detail of the Saudi government picking up the tab for as many as 18 Conservative politicians to visit the Gulf kingdom since the Yemen war began.

This is a conflict UK Government arms deals are helping perpetuate; one in which the targeting of civilians has been called a war crime. All in, Tory politicians have received nearly £100,000 in gifts, trips and fees from the Saudi leadership.

If all of this leaves a bad taste in the mouth then it should. Yes, the sums related to the gifts might be small. The very idea, however, that those handing out such gifts might also be providing the cash that helps terrorists kill British citizens on our streets is noisome.

Did the same UK politicians accepting such gifts know that the contents of the extremist funding report acknowledges this connection? Did Theresa May already know about the report’s contents as she was doing arms deals with the Saudis in April?

All possible political pressure must be brought to bear in making public the findings of the report. The citizens of the UK deserve no less.

Last week in the wake of the latest terrorist attack in London, Ms May, said; “Enough is enough”. The same must now apply to the UK Government’s dishonourable dealings with the House of Saud.