The Tale of Lord Jeremy Purvis and his Selective Outrage Over Puppetry

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb

In a recent session of the British Parliament, Lord Jeremy Purvis passionately condemned the Sudanese military’s installation of what he called a “puppet civilian prime minister”—welcomed by the African Union—and pointed to concerns (not mentioning by whom) that he might be endorsed by the UN. The decision was also welcomed by IGAD and the Arab League, but it seems those Third World underdeveloped organisations are not within the field of His Lordship’s concerns. Lord Jeremy then implored the UK government, in its role as “pen-holder” on Sudan at the UN, to do everything in its power to block international legitimacy for this government, all in the name of supporting Sudanese civilians. Very principled indeed!

One must, of course, admire Lord Jeremy Purvis’s deep expertise on puppetry and democratic transitions—wisdom undoubtedly refined in one of the world’s oldest parliaments. Yet, one might gently inquire: Where was this “liberal outrage” when his own government was caught performing as UAE’s marionette?

In April 2024, Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden embarked on a secret pilgrimage to the Emirati court—begging for forgiveness after the UK dared not support the UAE in the UN Security Council against the Sudanese complaint about the UAE’s arming and support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—accusations with evidence that were found to be credible by the UN independent panel of experts at the time. The RSF, as the world knows, specializes in massacring, raping, and displacing the very civilians Lord Jeremy claims to champion. However, the UAE’s punishment of the UK government—by cancelling high-level ministerial meetings with British officials that forced Oliver Dowden to embark on the UK’s atonement pilgrimage to Abu Dhabi—on Lord Jeremy’s file of interest about Sudan was somehow found unworthy of parliamentary scrutiny.

For His Lordship’s convenience, The Times documented this humiliation publicly here: (https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/uae-cancels-meetings-britain-row-sudan-civil-war-sxlhxwhtw)

And it deepens.

While Lord Jeremy Purvis waxes lyrical about supporting Sudanese civilians in the British Parliament, it would have been more appropriate for His Lordship to question the British government in Britain’s Parliament about its harassment and pressure of media outlets to remain silent regarding the UAE’s arming and support of the RSF as they commit violation after violation against civilians in Sudan. Once again, I can only bring to His Lordship’s attention sources from open UK media platforms—sources he may have overlooked amid the overwhelming burden of his deep concern for Sudanese civilians. Perhaps he will deem them worthy of raising in the British Parliament, as they shed light on just how far His Majesty’s Government has gone in becoming a puppet of the Emirates. Or is it that these concerns for “civilians” exclude those slaughtered by UAE-funded militias?

The Guardian: UK accused of suppressing criticism of UAE’s role in arming Sudan’s RSF

Middle East Eye: UK accused of muzzling criticism of UAE’s support for Sudan’s RSF

Perhaps, in his admirable concern for ensuring that Sudan does not end up with a puppet prime minister, Lord Jeremy—who is merely motivated by a noble desire to “support Sudanese civilians”—might also consider extending that same sense of duty to his own constituents. After all, as a rightly Honorable Member of the British Parliament, surely, he has a responsibility to ensure that his own government does not become a puppet in the hands of another foreign state waging its proxy war halfway across the globe.

One would also remind His Lordship that his definition of “supporting Sudanese civilians” has never exactly been universal to all civilians, or limited to them being civilians in the first place. As, in fact, it remained confined to a particular circle of politicians (civilians and armed) whom he actively works to support in his paid role at Global Partners Governance (GPG). That very organization, incidentally, provided technical and material support to the Tagadum alliance—an alliance, quite unsurprisingly, chaired by none other than former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who is currently a UAE resident while it is waging war against his country that he ruled on the heels of a popular revolution! Puppetry enough? Or does UAE puppetism not count? Because surely, Lord Jeremy would agree—not all puppetry is created equal. Especially when the hand up the back is manicured in Abu Dhabi.

However, he is the same Hamdok whose tenure ended not with a coup but with a resignation, and whose GPG-supported alliance includes not only civilians but also armed movements and openly aligned Janjaweed/RSF supporters—some of whom splintered off later to form the new Ta’sis alliance, which now pursues the dismemberment of Sudan. And yet, GPG has continued to offer technical (and perhaps channels material) support to the remnants in Hamdok’s camp, now rebranded under the fledgling Somoud alliance. All as if nothing happened. As if the prior support did not help provide the political capital, institutional impunity, and legitimacy that emboldened the perpetrators of atrocities—massacres, displacements, and sexual violence. And when this past support is questioned, the fallback is a rather convenient “we didn’t know.”

Well then—if ignorance is indeed the explanation, doesn’t that merit, at the very least, a pause for reflection? A moment of honest reckoning? Shouldn’t it prompt a reassessment before continuing to issue sweeping judgments based on epistemological biases and ideological frameworks that appear deeply flawed when reality checks? Or is it that, for Lord Jeremy, supporting civilians really just means supporting all civilians—except that, as Orwell might have put it, “some civilians are more civilian than others,” provided they carry the appropriate British-certified ink for the pen it holds?

Lord Jeremy, with unwavering ideological certainty, continues to repeat the catastrophic fallacy of equating the Sudanese army—or, more precisely, the entire apparatus of the Sudanese state, with its civilian and military institutions, from education to health, from agriculture to social services—with a fascist militia like the RSF. No amount of evidence from the ground—not the civilians fleeing to areas under army control, nor the vast disparity in the scale and nature of atrocities committed daily by the RSF, nor the consistent reports from international organizations—seems capable of shaking this dogmatic belief. Lord Jeremy’s insistence, along with those behind and beside him, reveals a political stance divorced from justice or objectivity; it is a blatant bias towards what seems a less risky stance in a complicated and corrupt international scene.

So we ask, quite sincerely, Lord Jeremy—the noble Member of the British Parliament, puffed up with the unbearable lightness of the white saviour as he speaks of supporting Sudanese civilians and Britain’s “penholder” role on Sudan at the United Nations: what has he done, in his rightful position to question His Majesty’s Government, to hold it accountable for what it has done with that very pen? What has his government done to protect the Sudanese for whom it holds the pen, and who have, for over two months now, been continuously bombed by Emirati drones—civilians whose infrastructure, hospitals, schools, heritage, and history spanning over 7,000 years is being systematically erased? Or is it that speaking about the sacred Emirati cow falls outside the bounds of “supporting civilians”? Or perhaps Britain, in its noble holding of the Sudanese pen, might consider using that very pen to scribble a polite little note to Abu Dhabi—asking, why detaining Sudanese political activists and leaders, some Lord Jeremy has met and smiled at previously, for months without charge or due process for daring to speak about the risk of their homeland being carved up. Or that these civilians, somehow, do not qualify as civilian enough to meet Lord Jeremy’s exacting standards of deserving support? Or perhaps their plight falls outside the Global Partners Governance job description of “supporting Sudanese civilians”?

These are serious questions, by the way—not something out of Animal Farm. Perhaps before pontificating about puppets abroad, Lord Jeremy might look at the strings tangled around Westminster’s own wrists.