What the row over the ‘genocide clause’ means for Global Britain

There is a parliamentary campaign being fought within and between both houses to insert some form of prohibition on trade deals with countries guilty of genocide. A determined group of MPs and peers across all parties and none are pressing hard for such a provision. They are backed by the International Bar Assiciation, the British Board of Jewish Deputies and the Conservative Muslim Forum, among others. The government is resisting. The “genocide amendment” is currently at the “ping pong” stage, successively approved and rejected by the Commons and Lords respectively. Because it is part of the trade bill, rather than a “money bill” as such, and because such issues were not covered in the Conservatives’ ejection manifesto, the process of attrition could take some time.  

It should be, in principle, an unexceptionable move, and one that wouldn’t raise any immediate issues with large economies in any case. Who wants to trade with mass murderers? The obvious candidate for such a snub would be China, because of its treatment of the Uighur Muslim people, as well as offences against human rights in Hong Kong and expansionism abroad. There is little possibility of any trade treaty with the people’s republic for some time. China is hardly hammering on Britain’s door, and the wind-down of Huawei’s UK presence proves the point.  

The debate also uncomfortably raises the question of what was the point of Brexit, given that determining our own terms of business was one of the few possible benefits of leaving the EU. Now that Britain is an independent trading nation surely this is a moment to make a point, to set a standard, and to show moral leadership to the world on free, fair and humane trade? Brexiteers might enjoy drawing a contrast between British fastidiousness and the EU’s new partnership agreement with China (although the European Parliament is making its own objections to that).

The supporters of the genocide amendment have even put forward a compromise. The original proposal was to have a high court decide as to whether a country was practising genocide. Given the definitional and procedural problems with that, and the fact that it gave more powers to courts than the legislature, a second, alternative, mechanism is also suggested. This would involve parliament being given a specific opportunity to add and approve a specific genocide or human rights amendment in any new deal, as opposed to approving or rejecting the entire trade treaty (though it might have that effect in practice).  

What seems to lie behind this struggle is the straightforward vested interests of ministers, particularly in the Department for International Trade. Understandably, they are reluctant to conduct tricky trade talks with constant parliamentary or court  “interference”, and still less to have months or years of patient negotiation unpicked at the last moment by (so the caricature would run), some bishops in the House of Lords fussing about rights and minorities. After all, very few nations have an unblemished record on human rights, and Britain would have few trading partners at all if the ethical dimension was pushed to its logical conclusion. Ironically the largest bloc of nations that share British values is the European Union. Many of the trade deals now being touted or concluded, such as with India, Turkey and Egypt are vulnerable to human rights objections.  

What is more, Brexit Britain will need to hitch itself to the fast developing nations of Asia, South America and Africa to catch the next wave of dynamic global growth. Without them, and especially China, arguably already the world’s largest economy, “Global Britain” will find its path to a new prosperity even more narrow, particularly since no trade agreement with America is in sight. Being principled can be a lonely business.