The powerful Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is set to meet senior royals on a visit to London this month that will give him a chance both to present himself as his country’s modernising face and experience British protests over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and its conduct in the three-year Yemen civil war.
The visit, already announced in principle by Boris Johnson, was discussed by the two men when the foreign secretary went to Riyadh last week. It is expected MBS, as he is colloquially known, will also visit Paris and Washington.
They will be his first forays out of his country since the start of an anti-corruption purge on 4 November that saw hundreds of Saudi potentates and businessmen arrested in the Ritz Carlton hotel on “corruption charges”, and as much as £100bn confiscated for the kingdom’s use in exchange for the opportunity to check out.
The London trip is likely to be one of the most sensitive diplomatic visits this year. The UK is keen to endorse the MBS 2030 vision, an attempt to turn Saudi Arabia into a market-based economy less dependent on oil while ministers hope for a bonanza for the City of London by winning the planned stock market flotation of Aramco, the state oil group valued at anything up to $2tn (£1.4tn), over rival bids from Wall Street and the far east.
In an interview with the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television channel this week, Johnson stressed the UK’s links with the Gulf and a burgeoning personal relationship with the crown prince. “The relationship between Britain and Saudi Arabia is historic. It’s more than 100 years old. It’s an extraordinary partnership. It’s a partnership based on a common view of the world in many ways, not every way, but in many ways.”
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