Tag Archives: David Cameron

Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Politics, United States

The United States and Britain hold peace talks with the Taliban…

The UK has announced it is set to join peace talks with the Taliban to bring an end to the 12-year conflict in Afghanistan that has cost more than 400 British lives.

Washington announced earlier this week that negotiations with the Taliban will begin as early as today in the Gulf state of Qatar.

David Cameron gave his backing to the peace plan and revealed that the UK has been ‘fully engaged’ in the process for some time.

A number of Conservative MPs warn the talks could lead to a sell-out that hands southern Afghanistan back to the militants who have killed 444 British servicemen since 2001. It has also emerged that Taliban fighters are likely to be released as a ‘confidence-building measure’ as part of the talks.

It is understood that British intelligence officers have been conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban for the past two years to help pave the way for the talks. Intelligence agents and diplomats are likely to join in if the initial exchanges suggest that a deal can be done.

Under the terms of the arrangement, the Taliban has vowed to break its links with Al-Qaeda terrorists in exchange for a role in running Afghanistan when Western combat troops withdraw at the end of next year.

The announcement was made immediately after NATO handed over control for combat operations to Afghan security forces in every region of the country.

The talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, where the Taliban has opened an office, may also include representatives of the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

While the US will have its first formal meeting with the Taliban in several years, it is expected that will be quickly followed up by a meeting between the Taliban and the High Peace Council – the structure that President Karzai has set up for talks of this nature.

The initial meeting with the Taliban is likely to be an ‘exchange of agendas’ in which both sides lay out what issues they want addressed. Prisoner exchanges will be one topic for discussion.

MI6 officers have been engaged on and off for more than two years in an attempt to get Afghans to talk to each other. The intelligence service believes this will lead to a positive outcome.

Mr Cameron has acknowledged that the talks would be ‘difficult’ for many people to accept, but he said we need to match the security response in Afghanistan with a political process to try and make sure that as many people as possible give up violence and join the political process.

The Prime Minister said that we should be very proud of what our Armed Forces have done because the proportion of terror plots against Britain emanating from Afghanistan has ‘radically reduced’ since 2001.

Conservative MP Bob Stewart, who commanded British Forces in Bosnia, has warned that the Taliban holds the ‘whip hand’ and negotiators need to ‘get the talks right’ or British service people would have ‘died in vain.’

General Khodaidad of Afghanistan, the former counter-narcotics minister, said the country’s armed forces would need to be able to prevent the return of Taliban control in the south, including Helmand province where British troops have been fighting.

Khodaidad says that the Afghan National Army will not be able to control Afghanistan for the long term. Like others he believes that some parts of Afghanistan will fall into the hands of the Taliban.

The military have always been clear that there needs to be a political solution. The irony now is that the country is not just handed back to the Taliban, the very regime which was toppled by the West in 2001.

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Britain, Economic, G8, Government, Politics

G8 Summit: Making taxation fair…

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People are often curious and sceptical of global summits. A view often expressed is that they are grand talking shops that produce little in the way of real change.

But in the case of the G8 Summit being held in Loch Erne, Northern Ireland, this might not necessarily be a bad thing. It might even prove to be the best possible outcome.

David Cameron has listed three priorities of the summit: to advance trade, ensuring tax compliance and promoting greater transparency.

The subject of corporation tax, despite seeming staid and dry, is likely to feature at the top of this list. The issue of whether multinational businesses in particular should pay more has turned into a highly-emotive issue.

There is widespread indignation at companies’ minimal corporation tax contributions on multi-billion pound sales in the UK, but the issue is not as simple and straightforward as has been portrayed.

It may appear there is an open-and-shut-case for forcing multinationals to pay more but, as any company executive will know, turnover does not automatically convert into profit.

Sadly, taxes are ultimately borne by shareholders, business owners, employees and customers; some are merely collected by businesses.

It is good in many respects to hear the prime minister professing himself ‘proud to be a low-tax, free-enterprise politician’ and he is right when he says that ‘low taxes are only sustainable if what is owed is actually paid.’

Mr Cameron is on shakier ground, though, when he differentiates between the compliance of small firms and multinational conglomerates, painting the later as simply abusive.

Tax experts will acknowledge that there is no real difference in attitude between large global corporations, small business owners and individuals towards paying tax. They all want to pay as little as possible within the confines of the law, if this maintains an acceptable relationship with Her Majesty’s Customs & Revenue (HMRC).

Global businesses may have more opportunities to manage the system, by channelling payments and receipts to the most tax friendly countries.

Equally, large firms have to contend with a great deal of bureaucracy due to the complexities of operating in different regimes.

It probably would be best if the leaders at the G8 Summit resist the temptation to announce anything but the vaguest form of agreement and focus, instead, on three areas of concern. The first should be to introduce additional measures to prevent tax evasion. Secondly, measures should also be introduced to increase the exchange of information between countries to improve cross-border transparency. And, thirdly, an agreement should be aimed for that sets out a common vocabulary that recognises the public desire to prevent abusive tax practices. Such an agreement should also discourage individual countries from labelling routine and accepted tax planning as avoidance.

The problem, however, is that there is no prospect of an event such as the G8 Summit defining even in the broadest terms, what might be meant by tax avoidance or, indeed ‘aggressive tax avoidance’, because the meaning of these concepts is highly subjective. For example, the coalition government has rightly introduced a number of tax reliefs to promote the UK as an attractive country for business investment. The Patent Box tax regime, introduced to boost research and development in the UK, is seen here as a worthwhile tax incentive, but other countries may believe it promotes tax avoidance. Clearly, then, what one country’s perception of what is a valid and desirable tax break may often be regarded by other countries as an incentive to avoid tax.

The worst outcome of the G8 Summit would be an ill-conceived proposal to change the global approach to taxing businesses, focusing solely on where turnover is generated rather than where profits are earned.

There are plenty of valid reasons to resist a proposal such as this, including the damage this would inflict upon UK companies whose primary sources of revenue lie in overseas markets.

We should hope the prime minister and other G8 leaders resist the urge to make global tax policy on the hoof to provide some popular but transient sound-bites.

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Britain, Syria, United States

Decision time over Syria. Avoid making historic mistake…

As world leaders gather for the G8 conference in Northern Ireland, one issue seems certain to dominate all others: the Syrian civil war.

On Friday, President Obama triggered an escalation in this already terrifying crisis by announcing the US will shortly send weapons to moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.

William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, then rushed out a statement of support, saying ‘we have to be prepared to do more to save lives’ and put pressure on the Russian-backed Assad regime to negotiate.

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has been visiting Britain today, and, officially, Downing Street insists no decision has been taken for Britain to deliver arms to the rebels. Worryingly, though, there is every indication that, where the US leads, Britain will wish to follow.

Of course, it’s not difficult to sympathise with politicians wanting to find a solution to a humanitarian disaster which has already claimed more than 90,000 lives. Millions more have been displaced.

But, as Conservative MP John Baron has said: ‘Arming the rebels and escalating the violence could be a mistake of historic proportions.’

In Syria, the ineluctable truth is we simply do not know who the enemy are. There is absolutely no way of preventing the supply of weapons falling into the hands of the extremists who are bolstering the ranks of the opposition forces – including Al-Qaeda.

Nor, even more frighteningly, can Downing Street predict the extent to which ramping up the violence in Syria will further destabilise a wider region which – with tensions simmering in Lebanon, Turkey and Israel – already resembles a fraught tinderbox.

We should not forget how Tony Blair’s egomania (and the subsequent suspension of the democratic process) enabled the former British prime minister to plunge Britain into its worst foreign debacle since Suez.

David Cameron has promised Parliament a say before Britain is dragged any further into Syria. He must honour his word on this. Making a historic mistake with Syria would prove disastrous.

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