ON MAY 10 2024 the hereditary head of state of Kuwait, a close ally of Britain and the US, suspended the nation’s parliament.

Announcing the closure could last up to four years, in a televised address Emir Mishal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who will rule by decree during this period, said he would not allow democracy to be “exploited to destroy the state.” The political system would be studied and revisions proposed, he said, followed by “whatever decisions we might deem appropriate.”

As the Washington Post noted in a June editorial: “Such remarks sound worryingly similar to what any number of would-be autocrats have said when annulling election outcomes.”

Kuwait’s political culture is more open than its Gulf neighbours, with the democratically elected national assembly in the tiny emirate the most powerful and adversarial parliament in the region. 

We shouldn’t exaggerate though. The national assembly’s powers are limited. “The constitutional set-up gives the parliament significant abilities to scrutinise, pressurise and oppose government policies, but virtually no powers to facilitate new policies or better implementation,” Jane Kinninmont, then senior research fellow on the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House think tank, wrote in a 2012 briefing.

“The main ways in which MPs can exert power are by blocking legislation, questioning and voting no confidence in ministers.”

The emir appoints the prime minister, who in turn picks the cabinet (the emir also appoints the judiciary). The 15 cabinet members also sit in parliament, voting alongside the 50 MPs elected by adult Kuwaiti citizens, thus loading the dice in favour of the government. Political parties are banned.

Furthermore, although his role is intensely political, the emir is presented as being above the political fray and it is taboo to publicly criticise him.

For example, during an earlier political crisis in 2012 leading opposition politician Musallam al-Barrak directly addressed the emir during a protest outside the national assembly: “We will not allow you, your highness, to take Kuwait into the abyss of autocracy.”

He was soon arrested on suspicion of “undermining the status of the emir” and served a two-year prison sentence (Amnesty International deemed him a prisoner of conscience, “imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression.”)

In its editorial the Washington Post reported “Kuwait’s autocratic neighbours have either said nothing in response” to the emir’s actions “or implied approval.” With approximately 13,500 troops stationed in several bases in Kuwait, the United States government remained silent until prompted by the US newspaper.

“We are aware of the developments regarding the Kuwaiti parliament suspension. The emir has spoken publicly about this issue in a televised address,” was the (non) response from the US State Department spokesperson.

What about Britain? Surely our own government would have lots to say about the emir’s closure of the national assembly given that the promotion of democracy is supposedly at the heart of British foreign policy?

I have checked the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) website and there has been no public statement about the events in Kuwait. The official FCDO X account hasn’t mentioned the dissolution of the Kuwaiti parliament either.

As is usually the case, the British media seem to have taken their lead from the British government: other than short reports in the Telegraph and the Financial Times, a ProQuest newspaper database search shows no mainstream national newspaper has covered events in Kuwait, and there is nothing on the BBC news website.

However, on May 14 Lord Tariq Ahmad, British minister for the Middle East, did find time to tweet about attending a weaving exhibition at the Kuwait embassy in London, shoehorning in a reference to the “strong UK-Kuwait partnership in this 125th year of official diplomatic relations.”

I asked the FCDO press office for a statement about events in Kuwait for publication, following up with a phone call later that afternoon and the next day. They have declined to provide a statement.

The FCDO’s decision not to publicly comment on, let along criticise, the actions of the Kuwaiti emir and his government shouldn’t be a surprise.

“The long history of Anglo-American great-power involvement in the Middle East … has, for the most part, not involved an effort to democratise the region,” Kinninmont explained in 2013.

“Rather, the general trend has been to either support authoritarian rulers who were already in place, or to participate in the active consolidation of authoritarian rule, including strong military and intelligence co-operation, as long as these rulers have been seen as supporting Western interests more than popularly elected governments would.”

Since Kuwait gained independence from Britain in 1961, Britain and Kuwaiti elites have enjoyed very close ties, with Britain acting as a protector to the emir and the rest of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, as Dr David Wearing sets out in his 2018 study, AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain.

“The UK has a strong defence relationship with Kuwait and we will continue to stand together in the fight against terrorism,” then British defence secretary Michael Fallon said in 2016.

This co-operation includes the rarely mentioned fact Britain has flown military Reaper drones out of one of the US bases in Kuwait, and joint training exercises between British and Kuwaiti forces.

In a press release to accompany the British foreign secretary’s visit to the Middle East in July 2023, the FCDO stated: “Trade and investment with the Gulf is vital to support the Prime Minister’s priorities to grow the economy. UK trade with Qatar and Kuwait was worth £18.1 billion last year alone.”

Frustratingly, Kuwaiti and Gulf money and influence often means it is precisely the people who have most expertise about the region that are often the most compromised, and therefore may steer clear of sensitive topics or soften any criticisms they may have of governments in the region.

The London School of Economics, Durham University, Sciences Po, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington DC think tanks like the Arab Gulf States Institute and Middle East Institute have all received huge amounts of Kuwaiti or Gulf funding, often for research focused on Kuwait and the Gulf.

Dr Christopher Davidson explained what this means in practice in his 2012 book After The Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies: “It is inconceivable … to imagine an academic with no alternative source of income researching and writing a serious critique of a regime that has either paid for his or her salary, scholarship, or the building that houses his or her office.”

Researchers who do engage in “serious critiques” of Gulf rulers run significant career risks, including jeopardising future funding opportunities, being frozen out by Gulf-funded research organisations who publish papers and organise public events, and even being de facto banned from entering the countries they work on.

This curtailment of academic freedom is, of course, no accident. In a 2020 peer-reviewed journal article Dr Kjolv Egeland and Professor Benoit Pelopidas looked at research funding and conflicts of interest, noting donors often want to “push particular narratives or policy ideas” and “control[ling] the discourse by fostering dependence and, by extension, self-censorship.”

A former grant manager for the ministry of defence of a nuclear-armed government told the authors: “If you don’t want to have a debate” funding potential critics “is a good option.”

It seems Kuwaitis remain broadly supportive of democracy, with the Washington Post highlighting the results of an Arab Barometer survey taken earlier this year. Forty-one per cent of Kuwaiti respondents agreed that “democratic regimes are indecisive and full of problems,” reflecting the common narrative that the dysfunctional parliament hinders economic development. However, 85 per cent of Kuwaiti respondents also agreed with the statement “democratic systems may have problems, yet they are better than other systems.”

Unfortunately, as well as struggling against their own rulers, democracy-supporting Kuwaitis are also up against British and US governments who will continue backing the autocratic elites across the Gulf — unless they are pressured to change their behaviour.

Long neglected by the anti-war movement and wider civil society organisations, it’s time Britain’s bipartisan, anti-democratic foreign policy in the Gulf is given the attention it deserves.

With a recent global survey showing citizens in foot-dragging petro-states, including Saudi Arabia, in favour of stronger actions to address climate change, supporting democratic institutions and pro-democracy actors in the Gulf is more important than ever. 

Follow Ian on X @IanJSinclair.