What happens in Britain can have big repercussions in the region — but the impact is not always immediately obvious.

THE name Goronwy Roberts has largely sunk from history, but the British junior foreign office minister was very much the man of the moment in the late 1960s, as far as the Arabian Gulf was concerned.

Roberts was the poor soul delegated to tell the leaders of what were then called the Trucial States that Britain, despite all its promises over the years — notably that it stood by its Arab friends, and would continue to provide security and trade assistance for as long as required — was actually preparing to pull out unilaterally from the entire region “east of Suez.”

Gulf leaders felt betrayed and enraged, but quickly got used to the idea and made plans that turned out rather well: They formed something called the UAE, which over more than 40 years has been responsible for huge increases in economic growth and property in the region.

I relate this history lesson now — on the brink of a general election in the UK — to illustrate two things: First, what happens in Britain can have big repercussions in the Gulf; and second, those repercussions are not always immediately obvious.

It has taken four decades to prove that the cash-strapped Labour government of the 1960s actually did the region a very big favor back then, when it prompted the creation of the UAE. Likewise, it may take a long time to feel the effects of Thursday’s election vote in the UK.

But the past should always guide us toward an accurate version of what the future holds, and it is possible to use history to get some feel for the answer to the question: Which would be better for business in the Gulf — the sitting Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, or the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn?

In fact, history is about all we have, because you can search the election manifestos of the two main parties without finding any meaningful mention of the Gulf or the individual nations of the region. That is understandable, I suppose. This is a British general election dominated by largely domestic issues, like the economy, social services, the threat of terrorism, and the UK’s vote last year to leave the EU.

The nearest the Conservatives get to touching on this region in the manifesto is in the section “Global Britain,” in which we are told: “Our global businesses and London’s position as the global center of finance make us more interconnected with the global economy than any other comparable nation.”

Britain is a “global champion of free trade,” we learn, and a Conservative government will work within the international commercial and financial structures to seek to replace the trade it will inevitably lose from Brexit.

Labour also has a section on “Global Britain,” which focuses on diplomacy, defense and development, while its thoughts on international trade are confined to the context of the Brexit negotiations. A Labour government’s future trade policy would seem to consist largely of creating policies and institutions it hopes will enforce its own stance on issues like bribery, ethics and human rights. “We will ensure proper transparency and parliamentary scrutiny of all future trade and investment deals,” it says.

Regardless of their different approaches, both Corbyn and May seem to think that the post-Brexit world offers compensatory commercial opportunities, but they may be in for a rude awakening. It is hard to think of a single deal that Britain could do with trading giants like the US, China or India — let alone the Arabian Gulf — that would make up for the lost business in the EU.

That has not, and will not, stop them trying, especially the Conservatives. May, who recently visited Saudi Arabia, and her predecessor David Cameron were frequent visitors to the Gulf in pursuit of opportunities in the energy, defense, financial and other sectors. The current international trade minister, Liam Fox, has also made regular trips to the Gulf.

Labour politicians — with their mistrust of the defense industry and stance on perceived corruption and human rights issues — have been far more circumspect in their dealings with the region, at least since the days of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Conservative Party has historically been keen to attract investment from the region into the UK, with Boris Johnson, the current foreign secretary, claiming when he was mayor of London that he ran the “eighth emirate” on account of all the UAE investment in the British capital. That has continued under his Muslim successor as mayor, Sadiq Khan.

On the other hand, there are dangers in attracting too much of the wrong kind of investment. Questions have been raised recently about the huge preponderance of Qatari investment in the UK and in London real estate in particular, amounting to perhaps $40 billion, in view of the Gulf country’s increasingly precarious financial and economic condition.

It is fair to say that the Arabian Gulf would probably be happier with a Conservative victory at the polls, but — as the case of Goronwy Roberts shows — there are often unexpected positive results from apparently negative events. Frank Kane is an award-winning business journalist based in Dubai. He can be reached on Twitter @frankkanedubai