Lockerbie bomber release: the evidence proving a Gordon Brown set-up

It seemed to start with some normally astute UK political journos and commentators appearing baffled. Paul Waugh of the Evening Standard, one of the sharpest of all, was of all a-Twitter last week about it's being bizarre that the British government chose to deplore the hero's welcome the Libyan government gave to returning released convict Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, whilst remaining silent on the fact that the Scottish government released him to be repatriated in the first place. 

Alex Massie, the equally astute Spectator CoffeeHouse resident blogger had run a couple of posts over the previous week in "calm down, dear" mode, ridiculing a range of articles and blogger posts suggesting that the real reason for the release has been the result of the machinations of the UK government, including Lord Mandelson. He has been emphatic that the Scottish government alone had the power to take any decision about releasing Megrahi.

Both the Guardian and The Telegraph ran headlines on 21st August based stating that David Milliband denied that the UK government had been involved in the decision to release Megrahi. Actually, he did no such thing. He said the accusation was "a slur". A slur is actually an accusation of a discreditable or disreputable act. It does not itself make any judgement as to whether the slur is true or not.

Most of the London press this week and weekend has been huffing and puffing at the posturing (or alternatively the moral deficiency) of the Scottish government, as if it had really been able to make the decision on its very own, regardless of whether the UK government agreed or not.

This is absolute nonsense.

For the transfer to happen, there had to be a Treaty between the two national states where the prisoners are incarcerated in place to enable any prisoner to be transferred.

Scotland is a devolved regional government. But it is not an independent nation. It is an internally governing province of the United Kingdom, with the equivalent status of Bavaria in Germany. It does not have a Foreign Minister, even if it does have independent courts, as it had long before the devolved Scottish Parliament came into being. It has no power to make Treaties or agree provisions which are assigned to the nation states which sign them.  In other words, it is more of a jumped up Local Authority than a nation-state, however much the titles of First Minister and the posturing about Scotland's quasi independence are played to the galleries on both sides of the border.

So where is the Treaty that allowed Megrahi to be freed and returned to Libya?

It was signed between the UK and Libyan governments on 17th November 2008. Is the number of British prisoners in Libya and the number of Libyan prisoners in Britain so significant as to justify the processes of negotiation and bureaucracy which setting up such a Treaty between states with such radically different conceptions of justice, due process and government must involve? I think not. 

Via the link, you can read the Treaty in full on the Foreign and Colonial Office web site. Here's what might be called "the money quote":

A transfer requires the consent of the both States.

The treaty was therefore agreed by the UK government, and the transfer of Megrahi, on the basis of its provisions could only have taken place with the UK government's agreement. It is inconceivable that Gordon Brown would not have been centrally involved in making this decision. He had it in his power to refuse to make the transfer, even if the Scottish Minister agreed to release Megrahi.

Indeed Megrahi's own lawyer is now arguing that it would have been more compassionate, if compassion was the issue, to release him to a hospital facility in the UK, whilst retaining him in custody. This has been done in the past with such high-profile prisoners as Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. As several commentators have pointed out, would the Scottish Justice Minister have been so ready to release the Dunblane murderer, Thomas Watt Hamilton, had he not committed suicide and survived to become terminally ill with cancer. I rather doubt it.

What's more, the Treaty did not come into force until it was ratified. This was a process controlled and completed entirely by the UK government. It was ratified by Jack Straw in May 2009.

And we now know that Ian Lewis, a junior minister wrote early in August to the Scottish administration to ask for Megrahi to be released. If you're really into deep Brownian machinations, you might even think it possible that this hapless man, previously sacked by Brown for harassing a civil servant just when he was faiing to show the required loyalty, could be the required sacrificial goat, with Brown denying that he knew of the letter.

There are those who suggest that  Blair set it all up back on his lengthy visit to Libya back in 2004. But Brown has never hesitated to overturn Blair decisions where he felt like doing so, including during the time when Blair was still serving as Prime Minister. And all three of the above key decisions, which were really the ones that freed Megrahi, were his responsibility. It is inconceivable that David Milliband or anyone else could have foisted such a decision on him. And we know that he held a substantial meeting with Gaddafi at the G8 Conference. Which happened to be just around the time the Treaty was signed.

Why did the Scottish government play ball? Apart from the fact that they didn't have much choice, why would such a self-aggrandising peacock as Alex Salmond want to pass up the chance to pose as a world statesman? To have gullible or lazy journalists gasp in awe as he postured at putting two fingers up at the USA claiming its legal system allowed for compassion where the US one did not? To save money on keeping Megrahi incarcerated? What was not to like? Unlike Gordon Brown, they may have been too full of the anticipated glory of it to anticipate a backlash that could turn nastier than they anticipated.

For Gordon Brown, it's seemed to be a win-win situation. He gets the lucrative British comanies' oil and gas contracts signed with Libya. Any flak is currently being fired at Salmond and his Justice Minister MacAskill. A typically satisfactory Macavity solution for which Brown is so renowned. 

And is it merely coincidental that the release and the resultant flak has started flying just when he has been on his most extended vacation yet? Or could this be yet another manifestation of the Macavity tactic?

Ultimately, as the papers suggest, it could lead to the downfall of Salmond's government  In the long term, it will make full Scottish independence more likely. Certainly more was done to present the illusion as reality this week and Salmond and MacAskill played it for all the drama they could wring out of it. MacAskill's speech was read as if he had spent weeks watching YouTube clips of particularly cliff-hanging Oscar awards announcements.

But Brown's potentially got quite an interest in building up an independent Scotland. Tom Bower's scathing and revelatory biography presents him as having a deeply embedded, unshakeable commitment to his native Scotland, and a dislike and distrust of England and London in particular. 

He is not so self-deluded as to be convinced that he will still be in power after the next election. It could suit a triumphant Tory party quite well to cut Scotland loose and get rid of a satisfyingly large number of historically Labour and Liberal Democrat seats. One of the highly convenient ways to lose the 10% of seats Cameron has promised to get rid of.

With an independent Scotland and a discredited SNP--even with a coalition of SNP and Labour, what would please the anti-monarchist Brown better than to become the first President of an independent Scotland?

I just hope every politician in Scotland has taken the trouble to read Bower's biography of Gordon Brown very, very attentively.

UPDATE: Reflections on the Obama administration's playing to the Scottish posturing whilst remaining virutally silent on the role of Brown and the specific responsibility of Gaddafii as the organizer and real source of the Lockerbie bombing here.

Comments

[jreed]

Well, what do they want from us...sympathy? He caused so many people to die...well, we'll give him our "sorries" but not for what he did.

[jeffkramerak]

Well, let’s face it…they let him go free through some secret favor or something…this is politics not Disneyland. “Compassion”, please!!! Give us smart folks a big break!!!