Report: UAE used 'clandestine' lobbying tactics in the UK

A UK-based investigative agency has obtained documents revealing an expensive lobbying effort by the UAE in Britain.

The 52-page report by Spinwatch unveils the operations of the UAE lobby in the UK, drawing on a number of leaked emails between lobbyists and some of the Britain's top diplomats, describing the "aggressive nature of the UAE lobby and how it's operated in the UK and US in an effort to bend those countries' home and foreign policy to promote its interests and further its agenda".

The Spinwatch group says that in the UK, the UAE 'mobilised a narrative against the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain in the highest echelons of government'.

The Spinwatch report includes emails from an Emirati lobbying group to influence the BBC's coverage of the Arab spring.

"Promising billions in return for influence in the US, infiltrating the British media to smear rivals, threatening to interfere in British parliamentary select committee reports, buying politicians' loyalty with lavish trips, donating to think-tanks and trying to influence them and protesting against press freedom - something that the UAE does not itself recognise - some would see as a step too far," concludes the report.

The report also questions the UAE's credentials as an alleged supporter of "freedom" and "human rights", given its own detention and torture of activists and deep involvement in the controversial Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.