Peter Oborne op-ed asks why Britain still calls the UAE an ally after alleged spying operation on London-based Muslim leader

An opinion piece published this week by journalist Peter Oborne in Middle East Eye uses the case of British Muslim activist Anas Altikriti to pose a broader question: why does Britain continue to treat the United Arab Emirates as a trusted ally when its government has allegedly targeted a UK citizen with a terrorism designation and covert surveillance on British soil.

Occupation Watch has previously reported on the core facts of the Altikriti case, including an ITV News investigation that found the UAE hired a mercenary to conduct covert surveillance on Altikriti in Britain. That mercenary, according to reporting cited in the case record, was Israeli, placing an Israeli intelligence-linked operative at the center of a foreign surveillance operation carried out on British soil against a British citizen.

Oborne's column does not dwell on the mercenary's nationality. Instead it uses his own two-decade acquaintance with Altikriti, chief executive of the Cordoba Foundation, to walk through the wider pattern of pressure the activist says he has faced, and to ask what it means for Britain's foreign policy.

The bank account, the database, the silence

Altikriti told Oborne that HSBC closed his personal bank account in 2014, along with those of his wife and two minor sons, after roughly three decades as a customer. The bank cited only that his accounts fell "outside our risk appetite," a phrase British law does not require it to explain further.

Oborne says he later gained access, through a third party, to World-Check, a database owned by Thomson Reuters and used by major banks to screen customers for terrorism and money-laundering risk. He says he personally saw the word "terrorism" printed above the entry for Altikriti's Cordoba Foundation, sourced to a UAE government designation. Oborne writes that the Daily Telegraph, where he was chief political commentator at the time, declined to publish his investigation into the closures, even as it later gave prominent front-page coverage to a similar account closure affecting Nigel Farage.

Altikriti told Middle East Eye's Areeb Ullah that UK police visited his home a decade ago to serve him an Osman notice, a formal warning issued only when officers believe someone faces imminent danger. He says that when he asked who was behind the threat or whether he should relocate, police declined to tell him. He has never been charged with a crime or questioned by British authorities.

An alliance under scrutiny

Oborne's argument is that the UAE, which he notes has faced its own accusations of money laundering, human rights abuses and sponsorship of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces militia, routinely brands political opponents like the Cordoba Foundation as terrorists, and that British institutions, from a major bank to a national newspaper to the police, have effectively gone along with that framing rather than protecting a citizen who says he has broken no law.

Academic Andreas Krieg, a London-based UAE specialist quoted in the piece, said on social media that he has faced years of what he describes as Emirati-sponsored harassment in Britain, including surveillance and letters from embassies and lawyers, and that the Altikriti revelations made him think about his own family's safety.

Why the Israeli connection matters

While Oborne's column centers on the UK-UAE relationship, the underlying ITV investigation's finding that an Israeli mercenary carried out the surveillance work is significant in its own right. It points to a market of former Israeli intelligence and military personnel offering surveillance and influence services to Gulf governments, often operating with little scrutiny in Western countries. Occupation Watch will continue to track that dimension of the case separately.

The British government has not, according to the published record, provided a public explanation for its handling of the Osman notice or addressed the ITV findings directly.