CbI
3 July 2014
Tony Blair seeks to capitalise on Gulf ties
Tony Blair Associates (TBA), the office of the former UK prime minister Tony Blair, is considering opening an office in
Abu Dhabi. GSN understands that a decision has yet to be taken, but given that TBA already has a member of staff
based in the UAE, an expansion there would make sense. Blair has good political, business and personal links with
the UAE; as well as the Gulf, an office in Abu Dhabi would oversee TBA’s business in the East, most notably Blair’s
lucrative work with Kazakhstan.
Since leaving political office, Blair has built up a labyrinthine
network of business ventures and charitable foundations, which
run somewhat uncomfortably aside his public role as
representative to the Quartet (see box, p2). While his Government
Advisory Practice has given him the ear (and pay cheque) of
governments as far afield as Mongolia, Colombia, Albania,
Kazakhstan, and Brazil, he has a long history of dealings in the
Middle East, and at one point had a controversial multimillion-dollar
contract advising the Kuwaiti government (GSN 923/8). He still
continues to develop relationships across the region; on 23 June,
he was back in Saudi Arabia where he met King Abdullah Bin
Abdelaziz’s son, deputy foreign minister Prince Abdelaziz Bin
Abdullah and deputy crown prince Miqrin Bin Abdelaziz.
The UAE seems to be a favourite port of call, however. Blair has
been a frequent visitor in numerous capacities; while there as prime
minister in 2006, he spoke of the UAE as a “modern miracle”, and
announced it would be one of the UK’s priority trade partners.
Since leaving office, he has been back in his capacity as Quartet
representative and as chairman of his Faith Foundation, which has
an initiative with the UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology. In 2009,
Blair also backed the UAE’s bid to host the International
Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
Friends in high places
While current UK Prime Minister David Cameron has had a
somewhat bumpy relationship with the UAE (GSN 969/12, 959/18,
935/5), Blair is thought to be on good terms with Abu Dhabi Crown
Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), whose views on the danger
of the Muslim Brotherhood he shares. “I am not aware of any
particular ‘friendship’ between Tony Blair and MBZ, but for sure
they are on the same neocon line,” one source who has worked
closely with MBZ told GSN. “MBZ was secretly pro-invasion in Iraq
2003, contrary to his father who had a plan for a smooth transition
with Saddam Hussein.”
Their views on Islamism are certainly congruent. In a speech at
Zayed University in 2006, Blair said the world was facing “a battle
between the forces of moderation and the forces of extremism”,
and has long equated the latter with the Muslim Brotherhood,
which MBZ has also ruthlessly opposed (GSN 929/6). A 23 June
report in the Financial Times said that Blair had commissioned a
“briefing document” on the Muslim Brotherhood, apparently on
behalf of the UAE leadership, though one aide was quoted as
saying the report – which comes in parallel to a UK government
investigation into the Brotherhood’s alleged links to terrorism – was
just for Blair’s personal use.
Blair and MBZ have met on several occasions; MBZ visited
Downing Street when Blair was in office, and one source said they
had held a meeting in Istanbul in 2007/8, not long after Blair left
office. Blair has been an advisor to MBZ’s main investment vehicle,
the Mubadala Development Corporation, since 2009, the same
year that the European Commission approved a joint venture
between Britain’s Rolls-Royce and Mubadala; sources at the time
told GSN that Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff who
has also worked closely with him at TBA, was involved in securing
that deal, and a partnership which continues to this day (GSN
959/18). (In May, Powell was named UK envoy to Libya, an
appointment which raised eyebrows both because of his links to
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Blair (who is said to have acted as a high level facilitator for
JPMorgan Chase in Libya) and because his brother Lord Charles
Powell chaired a company, Magna Holdings, involved in
developing a large hotel in downtown Tripoli in partnership with
institutions controlled by the family of Libyan leader Muammar
Qadhafi before he was overthrown).
Blair and the UAE leadership also have friends in common. Kazakh
President Nursultan Nazarbayev – who in 2011 hired Blair, Powell
and Blair’s former spin doctor Alistair Campbell as advisors – is
on excellent terms with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed,
who has made many visits to Kazakhstan, both on a personal and
an official level. In June 2013, the Sheikh Khalifa mosque in the
southern Kazakh city of Shymkent was inaugurated, having taken
three years and an estimated Dh45m ($12.3m) to build. The Dh
110m 120-bed Sheikh Khalifa Maternity Hospital is also in
Shymkent, while close to the city is the Sheikh Khalifa Houbara
Bustard Breeding Centre, a conservation project for the birds
which Sheikh Khalifa loves to hunt (GSN 964/9, 962/10)).
Nazarbayev and Blair also go back a long way; Blair invited
Nazarbayev to Britain in 2006, for an official visit during which he
also met Queen Elizabeth (GSN 792/12).
Blair’s personal wealth has been estimated at £70m ($119m),
though it is hard to calculate from the partial published accounts
of his various commercial endeavours. One of his main companies
is Windrush Ventures Limited, which gives its principal activity as
the “provision of management services”. It had a turnover of
£14.9m in the year to 31 March 2013, and a profit after tax of just
under £2m; administrative expenses including rent, travel and
hotel stays were a huge £12m, and its three directors (David Lyon,
formerly of Barclays Capital, former Downing Street aide Catherine
Rimmer and Jason Searancke, formerly at KPMG) earned
£582,000 between them, with the highest paid of the three (name
Diplomats call for Blair to step down
Tony Blair continues to face considerable criticism at home from a
public weary of his pontificating. His latest essay, which suggested the
current crisis in Iraq had nothing to do with the 2003 war in Iraq
(GSN 972/14), prompted a group of former diplomats and politicians
to sign a letter calling for him to step down as representative of the
Quartet, a role in which they said his achievements had been
negligible.
Signatories included former ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton,
former Libya ambassador Oliver Miles, former Egyptian ambassador
Christopher Long, and former London mayor Ken Livingstone.
According to The Guardian, the letter was sent to US secretary of state
John Kerry, Russian foreign minister Serge Lavrov, UN secretary
general Ban Ki-moon, and European Union foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton. “We are also dismayed…at Tony Blair’s recent
attempts to absolve himself of any responsibility for the current crisis
by isolating it from the legacy of the Iraq war,” the letter said. “It is our
view that, after seven years [as Quartet representative], Mr Blair's
achievements as envoy are negligible, even within his narrow mandate
of promoting Palestinian economic development. Furthermore, the
impression of activity created by his high-profile appointment has
hindered genuine progress towards a lasting peace.”
Blair’s office responded by saying all of the signatories were “people
viscerally opposed to Tony Blair with absolutely no credibility in
relation to him whatsoever”.
Blair’s office responded by saying all of the signatories were “people
viscerally opposed to Tony Blair with absolutely no credibility in
relation to him whatsoever”.
undisclosed) getting £273,000.
This article was originally published in GSN Issue 973, 3 July 2014.
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