Saudi crown prince begins landmark UK tour
Queen Elizabeth II will host a lunch for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he begins a visit to Britain today with an ambitious agenda to display Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
Consolidating the ties between the British royals and the new generation of the house of Saud is a prime of objective for the trip.
A separate dinner has also been arranged with Prince Charles, the next in line to the throne, and Prince William.
There will be meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May at 10 Downing St and at Chequers, her country residence.
Prince Mohammed, 32, will also use the trip to deepen his knowledge of the workings of the UK government at a meeting of the British Cabinet and a session with the National Security Council.
He will seek to secure the confidence of the City of London, which has made a strong bid to list the kingdom’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco.
And religious leaders will also have a chance to meet the heir to the Saudi throne.
“He is a young man in a hurry and, perhaps most important of all, he is changing the political and economic culture of Saudi Arabia,” said Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who served as ambassador in Riyadh when Prince Mohammed was first making
his mark a decade ago. “It’s a massive visit. It’s his first visit to the West since he became Crown Prince. Saudi Arabia matters.”
London has pitched an entirely new type of relationship with Saudi Arabia. It hopes that Britain can enable the architect of the kingdom’s reform programme to turn his nation into a player in the global economy.
At the heart of the three days of talks will be the launch of a bilateral government body designed to assist in implementing Vision 2030 and to promote British involvement in its rapidly developing service sectors.
The Strategic Partnership Council would provide a platform for government co-operation on the reform agenda, formalise discussion between the two governments and oversee the work of envoys to drive “economic and social progress”.
Mrs May and Prince Mohammed will also discuss the conflict in Yemen, covering the humanitarian crisis, means of tackling the ballistic missile threat and new efforts to achieve a political settlement.
With the headline figure of $100 billion (Dh367bn) circulating in London, the agreements lined up for the visit play to the strengths of the British economy. Saudi Arabia has a growing need for service industries, education, technology and public sector contracting.
The Gulf crisis will also feature in the working visit. The stand-off with Qatar over its support for terrorism and interference in the internal affairs of its neighbours has frustrated British hopes of sealing a quick free trade deal with the region after London breaks away from the EU in March next year.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said the kingdom remained committed to a trade deal with Britain, which he said would be easier that striking an accord with the 27-member EU.
“Our countries have been allies for many, many years,” Mr Al Jubeir said. “We think that Britain is one of the great powers. British ingenuity and technology and know-how is not going to change whether you’re part of the EU or not part of the EU.”
The regional crisis has other manifestations as Qatar grants support for protest during the visit, providing what Mr Al Jubeir called “rent-a-crowd” demonstrators for protests at key sites in central London.
A coalition of activists and campaign groups has vowed to protests during the visit. But Mr Al Jubeir has said the Saudi Arabian leadership is well aware that demonstrations are a big part of British life.
Protests are an aspect of a “very strong and very close political relationship”, he said, but they should not crowd out the main focus of the trip.
“This is part of your traditions; there are protests that take place in London all the time,” Mr Al Jubeir said. “This is not going to affect the visit or the objective of the visit.”
He said that Riyadh would continue to make its case that the war in Yemen was one his country had to fight.
“They criticise us for a war in Yemen, which is a just war,” Mr Al Jubeir said. “They don’t see the Houthis laying siege to towns and villages, the convoys of humanitarian aid that was stolen throughout 2017, the laying of mines that harm civilians.
“And don’t forget the Houthis are the ones that walked away from the talks.”
After leaving London, Prince Mohammed will travel on to other western states, mostly notably France and the US.
“Young Saudis, the 30 per cent of the population under 35, are doing real work,” Mr Cowper-Coles said. “That is the future. If we want to help him change Saudi Arabia, change the region for the better, then there is no alternative to engagement.”
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s official visit to Britain, which starts today, is a vital milestone on the road to his efforts to initiate wholesale economic and social reform in his country.
Since being appointed by his father, King Salman, last June, the 32-year-old Crown Prince has been charged with making radical changes to the kingdom’s conservative outlook.
And Prince Mohammed regards maintaining a close and constructive relationship with the UK as being vital to the reform programme’s chances of success, as he made clear when, prior to his arrival in London, I had an exclusive interview with him for The Daily
Telegraph at his impressive residence in the upmarket Riyadh suburb of Irqah.
“After Brexit, there will be huge opportunities for Britain as a result of Vision 2030,” said Prince Mohammed, referring to Saudi Arabia’s ambitious programme to diversify the country’s economy away from its traditional dependence on the oil sector.
“The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Britain is historic, and goes back to the foundation of the kingdom. We have a common interest that goes back to the earliest days of the relationship.”
Vision 2030 forms the centrepiece of his reform programme, whereby he aims to diversify into new industries and technologies, thereby helping the country to become economically more self-sufficient.
The economic reform programme, moreover, is widely regarded as being the driving force behind an equally ambitious social agenda, one where the traditional influence of the country’s conservative-minded clerical establishment is replaced by a more liberal approach, one that is more cognizant of women’s rights.
“We believe that Saudi Arabia needs to be part of the global economy,” Prince Mohammed told me. “People need to be able to move freely, and we need to apply the same standards as the rest of the world.”
He explained that he sees the social reforms he is driving through as being part and parcel of his efforts to make the kingdom better aligned with the rest of the world.
Indeed, most of the international headlines concerning the kingdom at present tend to relate to the new opportunities being afforded the country’s womenfolk, from being allowed to drive their own cars to running their own businesses. Earlier this week hundreds of Saudi women runners, many of them dressed in traditional clothing, participated in the country’s first female running race.
Such changes, though, can only be accomplished if Prince Mohammed proves his credentials in a far more demanding arena, namely the global financial markets where he needs to win the backing of international investors if he is to acquire the financial clout that will allow him to press ahead with restructuring the economy.
And this is what really makes his visit to London this week so important.
For the reform programme to work, the Saudis need to raise capital to fund Vision 2030, and they plan to do this by raising around $100 billion by floating a stake in Saudi Aramco, the state-owned energy company, on the international markets.
While several cities, including New York and London, are vying to handle the listing, it looks increasingly as though the London Stock Exchange is best-placed to handle it. US President Donald Trump might be lobbying hard to have it handled by Wall Street, but there are fears that if the Saudis opt for New York, they could find themselves liable to costly legal challenges from the families of Islamist terror victims as result of the recent Jasta legislation passed by Congress.
If the Aramco float is to take place in London, a final decision is expected after the Crown Prince has completed his world tour of Britain,
Saudi Arabia’s social changes can only be accomplished if Prince Mohammed proves his credentials in global financial markets
France and the US, then the Saudis need to reassure investors that it is a worthwhile investment.
Which explains why Prince Mohammed is going out of his way to stress the importance of the UK-Saudi relationship during this week’s visit to Britain.
One vital area of co-operation between the two countries that Prince Mohammed was keen to emphasise during our interview relates to the sphere of defence and intelligence-sharing, a long-standing relationship that British intelligence officials say has thwarted a number of major terror attacks against the UK in recent years.
“The British and Saudi people, along with the rest of the world, will be much safer if you have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia,” he explained. “We want to fight terrorism and we want to fight extremism because we need to build stability in the Middle East.”
Key to his thinking on this issue is that the success of the economic reform programme set out in Vision 2030 will be to the benefit not just of Saudi Arabia, but the entire Middle East, a development he believes will help to defeat the extremists.
“We want economic growth, which will help the region to develop,” he told me. “Because of our dominant position, Saudi Arabia is the key to the economic success of the region.”
The British government certainly recognises the importance of Saudi’s contribution to combating terrorism and extremism.
During his visit Prince Mohammed will have private meetings with the heads of both the MI5 and MI6 security and intelligence agencies, as well as attending a meeting of the full National Security Council.
Britain clearly wants to make a success of Prince Mohammed’s visit, which can only be good news for the future prospects of his ambitious economic and social reform agenda.