As the run-up to the 2024 UK general election begins in earnest, it is likely that we will see a rapid increase in hysteria surrounding Chinese and Russian interference in Britain’s electoral process. However, there is no doubt that the majority of this discourse will fail to connect this meddling with Britain’s own historical involvement in election interference, military interventions, and assassinations, in its attempt to preserve commercial and ideological interests abroad.
Since the Second World War, the UK has planned or executed no fewer than 42 attempts to remove foreign governments across 27 countries. In that time, Whitehall officials have continuously sought to overthrow democratically elected leaders in Iran, Guatemala, British Guiana, and the Congo. This was driven by their policies of nationalisation and the perceived threat this posed to Britain’s commercial and imperial ambitions.
The failure to mention this violent and persistent British interference on a global political scale obscures the reality that the tools employed against us today are, in essence, tools of our own invention. When Rishi Sunak brands Chinese involvement in Westminster as, “absolutely unacceptable,” he strategically positions the UK as a victim, diverting attention from the fact that the weapons used against us are the very tools with which we engage in attacks on others.
In 1953, in collaboration with the CIA, the British Secret Intelligence Service organised the coup that led to the overthrow of Iran’s first democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The root of Mossadegh’s deposition lay in his government’s oil nationalisation, which diverted the profits of the lucrative industry back into the Iranian government rather than into the coffers of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation, a forerunner for BP.
UK intelligence services consistently communicated to their American counterparts that a coup was necessary, not solely to maintain Britain’s oil monopoly, but to prevent Iran from aligning with the Soviet Union. The USA’s considerable Cold War anxiety meant that minimal persuasion was needed before the CIA joined the MI6 in launching political warfare against Mossadegh. They incited riots, spread fake news through posters and newspapers, and encouraged religious leaders to criticise the nation’s leadership. This resulted in General Fazlollah Zahedi seizing Radio Tehran and announcing himself, “the lawful prime minister by the Shah’s orders,” while simultaneously collecting $1 million in cash from the CIA. The UK got their oil back.
In the same year, Queen Elizabeth II signed documents greenlighting the deployment of British troops to remove Cheddi Jaggan, the democratically elected nationalist Chief Minister of British Guiana. Working again with their American counterparts, Whitehall planners dispersed anti-government propaganda in Guatemala, laying the foundation for the CIA-backed coup of Jacobo Arbenz, another democratically elected nationalist leader. The aftermath saw Guatemala plunged into 40 years of dictators, death squads, and near-genocide.
In 1965, the UK backed the slaughter of an estimated 1.2 million communists, leftists, and ordinary peasants in Indonesia during the successful overthrow of President Sukarno, having failed in their attempts to do so a decade earlier.
UK interference intensified in 1961, where evidence suggests that Whitehall officials, once again alongside the CIA, initiated a vicious campaign to overthrow Patrice Lumumba. He was captured, tortured, and executed just over a year after becoming the first democratically elected leader of an independent Congo.
In Libya, after 42 years and two failed assassination attempts, Britain finally punished Muammar Gaddafi for nationalising British Oil operations in the North African nation. He was killed in October 2011 by Islamist militants who were aided by a major air campaign and covert support from Britain’s forces.
Though Gaddafi can hardly be labelled a benign force, his oppressive rule brought progress to much of Libya which some might find seemingly preferable to the anarchy, terrorism and ongoing war that ensued in the decade following his death.
However, time and again, British intelligence forces have targeted popular, nationalist, and frequently democratically elected regimes simply because these regimes fail to adhere to British and Western commercial and economic interests. Mossadeq was overthrown because he prioritised the needs of the Iranian people ahead of the profits of British oil. Jaggan faced intervention for attempting to implement policies that would benefit Guyana’s poor, but simultaneously threatened British bauxite and sugar interests. Sukarno, Lumumba and Arbenz simply represented a political model that veered away from the pro-corporate policies of London and Washington.
British interference in the democracies of other nations has not dissipated in the 21st Century. In 2019, British lithium interests played a key part in the UK’s Bolivian ambassador supporting a right-wing coup against President Evo Morales. At the same time, in Venezuela, having backed media and NGO projects that promoted the opposition, Britain was one of several Western nations who recognised Juan Guaido as the ‘interim president’ over Evo Morales.
The issue of British electoral integrity is a legitimate concern, but Brits should also be concerned with the UK’s history of undemocratic interference around the world. Hundreds and thousands have died in the aftermath of these coups. Millions more have suffered in the Congo, Guatemala, Iran, and beyond at the hands of regimes which were installed, in part, with British assistance. Complaints of foreign interference in British elections can only be proffered in conjunction with a recognition of British interference in foreign affairs. For as long as the UK continues to meddle abroad, we must confront the fact that nations may be tempted to use our own methods against us.
By Freddie Tuson