How to avoid busker career of Mark Smith, UK diplomat who quit over Gaza
On June 10, a former British diplomat named Mark Smith went on the BBC to discuss the compulsions and complexities involved in having a conscience and the courage to act on its prompt.
Mr Smith, who resigned in August over the UK’s arms sales to Israel, spoke to the broadcaster while taking a break from “busking”.
Did the word “busking” surprise the BBC presenter? If so, they took it in their stride. But for everyone else, it may have felt like a rather large fillet of British cod had been swung across your eyes, nose and cheeks.
A cold, wet slap in the face.
Mr Smith was an example of what happens when a British diplomat raises concerns that the UK government “may be complicit in war crimes”.
He resigned after raising his concerns with the UK’s Foreign Office and receiving nothing but acknowledgements. Having resigned, he was left with little choice but to make a bit of money busking.
But what was gained in the process? By him? By the greater cause (ie justice and ethics)? While Mr Smith says, six months on, that he doesn’t regret resigning as a diplomat, surely he must sometimes wonder if anything was achieved because he was brave enough to sacrifice his career and salary?
Indeed, it is exactly such a fate as Mr Smith’s that Carne Ross, another former UK diplomat, is now warning against.
Mr Ross, who resigned from the UK Foreign Office over the 2003 Iraq invasion, has addressed news reports that 300 Foreign Office officials and diplomats have written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy to raise concerns about UK policy on Gaza.
In his excellent Substack, Mr Ross has advised serving diplomats to neither resign nor stay quiet. The Foreign Office has offered a “dismissive and patronising response” to the 300 officials’ concerns, he noted, basically saying “do what you’re told and if you don’t like it, quit”.
But “resignation is a heavy price, as I know — you lose career, income and pension,” writes Mr Ross. “Officials have mortgages to pay and families to feed. Why should they pay that price while those who stay silent — and complicit — carry on with their comfortable salaries and careers?”
Quite so. What might a diplomat with a conscience do instead?
Mr Ross suggests the following: “Do not resign. Stay together. Become public. Perhaps strike. Give interviews and leak documents. Let them fire you and then sue them for wrongful dismissal (as Josie Stewart has successfully done over the government’s lies about the Kabul evacuation). Get legal advice.”
These are all good suggestions, especially in light of Mark Smith’s post-diplomatic career as a busker.
[On a side note, when Mr Smith resigned, the BBC quoted his email to fellow diplomats. Mr Smith said he raised concerns “at every level” in the Foreign Office, including through an official whistle-blowing mechanism. He said he had previously worked in Middle East arms export licensing assessment for the government and “each day” colleagues were witnessing “clear and unquestionable examples” of war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel in Gaza. He wrote: “Senior members of the Israeli government and military have expressed open genocidal intent, Israeli soldiers take videos deliberately burning, destroying and looting civilian property. Whole streets and universities have been demolished, humanitarian aid is being blocked and civilians are regularly left with no safe quarter to flee to. Red Crescent ambulances have been attacked, schools and hospitals are regularly targeted. These are War Crimes.” He said there was “no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel”.]
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com
