BP Lockerbie and Cameron’s U.S. Visit

There is something rather ugly about the United States sometimes. It is the most vengeance driven society in the civilised world. This is curious because Americans are among the warmest, kindest and most generous people anywhere. It is just that there are moments when things get out of hand. Such a moment is now.

Having allowed anger and frustration about the BP oil disaster to gear up to bullying (all the regulators and most of the personnel involved were American after all), Washington has now decided to involve BP in the business of the release of the Lockerbie bomber, alleging that its lobbying in order to win an oil contract was the driver that set Al Megrahi free.

Before exploring this, certain points need to be made. Anybody who does not recognise a connection between the shooting down by a U.S warship of Iran Air 655, an unarmed passenger plane flying in its own airspace with two hundred and ninety innocent people on board including sixty six children, all of whom perished, just six months before Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie, is failing to grasp the roots of this terrible event.

Anyone who has studied the evidence given in a peculiar jury free trial where a piece of Holland was deemed to be Scotland, cannot be confident that Libya acted alone, if Al Magrahi was the only perpetrator, or even involved at all. It is difficult to see in a fair jury trial that he would have been found guilty. Many of the victims’ families feel this way. It is also startling to see that while America paid compensation to Iran after being taken to the International Court of Justice seven years after the event, this amounted to a mere $180 million, whereas Gaddafi was persuaded to settle, as part of the price for coming in from the cold, $2.8 billion, or $8 million per family (some of whom refused to accept anything).

Scotland has its own legal system, wholly independent from England, which has always been the case. Since devolution the Scottish Government has held the legal authority and it was the Scottish Justice Minister who made the decision to set the prisoner free. Whether they like it or not it is none of America’s business, anymore than we could rage at them over the preposterous decision of their Supreme Court to give the disputed election to Bush without counting all the votes.

Cameron is the most socially graceful and level tempered Prime Minister in memory. He also disagreed with the decision to release the prisoner and said so loudly as Leader of the Opposition. These two attributes will help him to calm the mounting hysteria in Washington. He also needs to put his foot down and explain quite firmly that the United Kingdom is an independent democratic country, which for good or ill, can do as it sees fit whether releasing prisoners or lobbying for oil contracts and so long as corporations operate within the law, neither of these matters are the business of the Government or Congress of the United States. Whatever the special relationship is, it is not a licence for America to hector, bully and berate us. We have had enough.