Abu Dhabi made its ‘big play’ in Manchester in 2013 when it entered into a £
1 billion property deal with Manchester City Council. A report which set out “the detailed commercial arrangements” for the joint venture was kept secret because it “involved consideration of exempt information relating to the financial or business affairs of particular persons.” The Guardian
attempted to obtain the report through a freedom of information request, but the council denied the request, citing “the risk of prejudice to the commercial interests.” It’s not clear if they meant the commercial interests of the council or the commercial interests of Abu Dhabi, which in the case of this deal are managed by a company registered off-shore in the tax haven of Jersey.
Having been made aware of the council’s close business links to the Abu Dhabi government, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International wrote to the two most senior figures in the council, Sir Richard Leese and
Sir Howard Bernstein, asking that they “take some simple and principled steps that would support victims of serious human rights violations and ensure Manchester’s commercial relationships with senior figures in the UAE government do not besmirch the city’s reputation.” The March 2016 letter made reference to the council’s celebration of the city’s radical past. (In 1862 Lancashire mill workers — at great personal cost — refused to touch any raw cotton picked by American slaves.
Abraham Lincoln wrote to them, praising their heroism, which, he said “has not been surpassed in any age or in any country.” Mohamed bin Zayed would have had them maced and thrown them in jail. He’d have come up with something more devious for Emily Pankhurst, whose suffragette movement began at her Manchester home in Nelson Street.)
Leese responded, describing the Abu Dhabi government as “exemplary business partners” (which suggests he hasn’t seen the video of Sheikh Issa Al Nahyan using a cattle prod on his former business partner), and saying that the “alleged” abuses detailed in the letter were beyond the council’s sphere of influence. If that was debatable then, it’s laughably untrue now — last month Sir Howard Bernstein took up a job with the City Football Group.