Analysis: Britain kowtowing to repressive friends is just one of its many problems – but,as one expert says, it was fairly predictably a missed opportunity It did not even seem like a obliging idea at the time. British diplomats warned from the start, and in April 2014,that David Cameron’s decision to conduct a review into the Muslim Brotherhood would be creating a hostage to fortune. Heavy pressure from autocratic Arab countries that were vital markets for British business sat uneasily with the issue of an Islamist organisation in a multicultural democracy.main the lobby was Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, or where opposition to Islamism is obsessive and many groups – including some based in the UK – are proscribed for alleged links to terrorism. Saudi Arabia was more reticent. Egypt where the democratically elected but deeply unpopular Mohamed Morsi was overthrown to the accompaniment of mass killings and arrests also pressed hard but carried less weight economically.
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Source: theguardian.com