UK Terror Police detain my friend Ian Proud
Former senior British diplomat Ian Proud was detained on Friday evening as he landed at Heathrow airport after attending the annual Valdai Conference in Moscow. A squad of plain clothes counter-terrorism police intercepted him as he exited the plane and interrogated him till the small hours of Saturday morning. He had DNA and fingerprint samples taken, had his computer, phone and data stick confiscated, and was issued dire warnings of consequences under the Terrorism Act if he failed to fully comply with them. His crime? Diplomacy.
Ian, the author of A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed: 2014-2019, has become a powerful voice advocating for a return to diplomacy to solve international crises.
In my recent article “Non-diplomacy and its consequences” I quoted Ian a couple of times, including his valuable insight: “Diplomacy is tough, it's not about friendship. Diplomacy is about settling differences and finding ways to coexist.” Ian also told me during a discussion a few months ago: “Diplomacy is not about going to summits where you meet lots of people who already agree with you. That's not diplomacy, that is theatre."
Like many, I reached out to Ian to extend solidarity. He told me he felt the British intelligence services were doing more than intimidating him personally.
“I can cope with the stress of things like this happening to me, but part of the intent is to cause my family so much anxiety that it makes it harder for me to pay visits to such events as Valdai in the future. My son has said decisively he doesn't want me to go back.”
The day after his arrest (technically a multi-hour “detention”) he told his audience on The Peacemonger: “We need peace. We need diplomacy. We need everybody to get on board with pushing our ridiculous globalist governments to look under the hood and see how much they failed the people of Ukraine, the people of Europe, and also the people of Russia.”
That kind of talk can get you arrested in the West today.
So what did Ian Proud, a man who committed 24 years of his life to serving the UK, do to trigger such a dramatic event that left him and his family stressed and wounded? He went to a conference in Russia. Valdai is an annual international conference bringing together foreign and Russian policy experts, particularly academics, to discuss geopolitics. Typically, at the end of the conference President Putin will deliver an address and engage in an extended Q&A, as happened this year. Several of the geopolitical analysts I greatly admire such as Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute, Professors Richard Sakwa, Geoff Roberts, Glenn Diesen and John Mearsheimer, and the late Stephen Cohen, all experts on Russia, have attended Valdai. I would personally leap at the opportunity to attend the conference, sometimes dubbed the Russian Davos.
Ian knew he could be the subject of scrutiny.
Ian Proud is the host of The Peacemonger channel on YouTube.
“I was a senior representative of Her Majesty's government. I was actively involved in sanctions against Russia. I authorized many sanctions against Russia after the war broke out in 2022. Everybody knows my views on sanctions – that they have been a complete disaster.”
Prior to going to Valdai, Ian took advice from a former British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Tony Brenton, and wrote to inform the Foreign Office that he was going to the conference.
"I explained to them that I had been invited and I wasn't being paid. The organizers paid for my flights and the accommodation while I was there, and the food, but I received no money. I reassured the Foreign Office that I would continue to abide by my commitments under the Official Secrets Act, which I take very seriously, having had access to top secret intelligence material throughout my diplomatic career,” Ian said.
What happened at Heathrow was likely a form of intimidation rather than a belief that Ian had done anything remotely disloyal. The treatment nonetheless was hurtful and he resented the emotional strain it placed on his family.
“I served my country for 24 years as a diplomat. You go to Whitehall and the place leaks like a colander. If there are any secrets, you always find them in the Daily Mail. I never leaked a single secret throughout my time in the diplomatic service. That commitment to secrecy is something that I hold very dearly.”
I listened intently to Ian’s account. It was a training day for me because it is quite possible that at some point I will be subjected to similar treatment – not because I will have done anything wrong. I consider myself far more loyal to New Zealand than our current political leaders who have handed over the digital keys to our defence, intelligence and cabinet-level secrets to a rogue USA and Israel whilst I would only be guilty of advocating for an independent foreign policy that was friends to all, enemies of none.
Last year when I went to the UK with my wife, we agreed on a protocol as to what she would do if I was detained at Heathrow airport. I had just written an article “Vive la resistance! The heroes who oppose genocide” about the Palestine Action activists arrested in the UK for direct action against the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems and other targets associated with the genocide of the Palestinian people. Palestine Action is a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act (the IDF is not). Under the UK Labour Party which has done so much to support Israel’s killing of countless women, children and men, people like me are increasingly targeted under the Act. The drift of many countries in the West towards fascist repression is real.
Over 4,000 mainly elderly and highly respectable UK citizens have been arrested for simply holding cardboard signs that say “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Amongst their number recently was Margaret Owen OBE, a 94 year-old human rights lawyer and Jewish person, arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding such a sign. Meanwhile real terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu, the subject of an ICC arrest warrant, was free to address the UN General Assembly (most delegates walked out, except the pro-Israel, pro-genocide states like my own and the UK).
Another of my heroes, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, has been heavily sanctioned by the US. Albanese had to use cash to pay for a medical procedure last year because of sanctions applied to her by the US for her criticism of Israel. Unlike Netanyahu’s freedom, Albanese was unable to present her annual report on the Occupied Palestinian Territories in person to the United Nations last year because the US withdrew her visa.
Today the West criminalises diplomats and ICC judges, special rapporteurs, academics and journalists whilst investing heavily in wars of aggression and endless crimes against humanity. It paints a very depressing picture of a West in moral decay.
What gives me a glimmer of hope are people like Ian Proud, Francesca Albanese, my friends Ray McGovern, John Whitbeck and Chas Freeman, and so many other people who get up every day and fight for a return to dialogue, a dialling down of tensions, and a stepping away from wars of aggression. These are the people who might save us all because we live in a world that seems oblivious to the risk of calamitous escalation. Ian said the trip to Valdai reinforced in him a feeling that we are headed towards a European war with Russia.
“We're just assuming that Russia won't use nuclear weapons. I worry because all of our assessments were wrong about Russia and we could end up with lots of us dying,” Proud says. “We need diplomacy, and we need it now. We need our police to stop repressing people like me who are promoting that."
Eugene Doyle
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He hosts solidarity.co.nz.
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