Britain ‘must stand up to Saudi’

Britain must stand up to Saudi Arabia after a journalist was allegedly murdered in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, shadow chancellor John Mcdonnell has said.

The Washington Post reported that Turkish investigators believe Jamal Khashoggi, one of the newspaper’s contributors, was killed last week in a premeditated murder.

The critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vanished on Tuesday while on a visit to the consulate for paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee.

Labour’s Mr Mcdonnellsaid: “If the information that’s coming out is true, it is absolutely appalling. It’s unacceptable.

“We, along with other nations now, should stand up to the Saudi government and make sure they know it is unacceptable, and if this means taking action in some form, we should take those actions.

“I’ve been on a number of demonstrations when the Saudi regime have sent representatives here because of human rights abuses and if this is another example of that, we’ve got to be much firmer.” Saudi’s Istanbul consulate called the murder claims “baseless” and insisted the writer left its premises.