NEWCASTLE CITY COUNCIL SELECTIVE WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH SAUDI ARABIA

Written by Andrew Page

On Tuesday 18th February a high-level delegation of Human Rights Activists met with Newcastle City Council’s leader Karen Kilgour, and presented her with a list of demands she could act on which would show solidarity with their causes. Although appreciative of the opportunity to meet, the delegation were disappointed that Kilgour failed to make any firm commitments to show solidarity with the victims of the Newcastle United owners. She also refused to pose for a photograph with the delegation.

Afterwards Kilgour told local media that, while the council “absolutely condemns human rights abuses… it is for the national government to raise concerns around human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, and indeed elsewhere around the world, at a national level.”

When details of the meeting emerged it later became clear that Kilgour was accompanied by the council’s Director of Investment and Growth Michelle Percy, one of the most senior officers at the council.

There have long been concerns at the council regarding relations between officers and elected officials. The previous leader Nick Kemp had been unable to give a direct answer when asked if he could confirm whether he was aware of bullying or toxicity among the council’s senior politicians and directors in October 2023. Shortly afterwards, Labour councillor Jane Byrne resigned from the Cabinet saying that she couldn’t trust staff, and she accused officers of undermining the council. Then in September 2024, Percy made an allegation of bullying against Kemp. He resigned shortly afterwards, eventually being replaced as leader by Kilgour. An investigation into the allegation is ongoing. The council under Kilgour’s leadership has also voted for a wider independent investigation into the culture at the council under the leadership of Kemp, who has now resigned from the Labour Party.

Percy’s presence in the meeting indicates that she is likely to be on better terms with the current leader than she was with her predecessor.  However, her presence makes the claim that addressing issues in Saudi Arabia is out of the council’s scope and are ‘a matter for national government’ seem unsustainable – responses to FOI requests made by NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing have shown that Percy has been central to the council’s efforts to use NUFC’s relationship to Saudi Arabia to pressure our own government.

Shortly after the takeover’s completion, the council’s then leader Nick Forbes and CEO Pat Richie wrote to Amanda Staveley, the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s frontwoman at NUFC. They expressed a desire for her to “write to Government supporting development opportunities in the city”. Seemingly there were no qualms about asking a foreign government’s representatives to lobby our own government on the council’s behalf – the council evidently believed that they could use the club’s ownership to influence matters at a national level.

Staveley more or less met these expectations in January 2024, albeit in an unexpected way, when she intervened on the council’s behalf to secure the release of funds for the restoration of the Tyne Bridge, arguably the city’s most recognisable landmark.

On 13th January 2024, Percy wrote to Staveley setting out the issues the council was having in securing the required funding from central government – apparently a recent discussion with Staveley had given Percy the impression that she might be able to help.

Staveley then wrote to two government officials asking for assistance. She began her appeal with an acknowledgment that the issue of the Tyne Bridge’s funding should be outside the remit of the two officials as: “this is an issue that sits firmly with the Department of Transport [so] this is clearly not something you would ordinarily be briefed on.”

She also wrote that the council’s “Labour leader will no doubt use any opportunity to extract political capital” from the situation – an interesting thing to write when making an appeal on behalf of one of that council’s directors. She was sure to name drop NUFC chairman and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, writing that he “should be in London with me for a few meetings next week”. North east journalists reported that Al-Rumayyan was in London towards the end of the month when the email was written.

The government official could have replied by saying that not only did the Tyne Bridge restoration funding have nothing to do with him, it also had nothing to do with Staveley – her only tangible connection appeared to be that she owned a minority share of the local football club. The official didn’t do this – instead they responded “Let me check” before raising the possibility of a meeting with “HE” (His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan):

“I swapped messages with HE ahead of Davos but he’s not attending so perhaps we catch up in London.”

We can’t know whether Staveley’s intervention was decisive or not – the council was making other efforts to obtain the money. 17 days after he was denigrated in Staveley’s email to the Prime Minister’s Office, apparently without his knowledge, council leader Nick Kemp travelled to 10 Downing Street, where he lobbied ministers for the release of the funds. The following day the council were able to publicly confirm that the funding had been released.

When details of this email emerged in the press, the Department of Transport said that the email Staveley sent played no part in the release of the funding.

Kemp was the elected leader of the council and was making his own appeals to government to resolve the issue. Percy is an unelected council official, and Staveley is an unaccountable businesswoman, yet their attempt to circumvent the proper channels by using Staveley’s connection to the Saudi state would have had the effect of sidelining Kemp had they been successful, elevating an appeal made via a backchannel above the proper processes.

It is hard to square this approach from Percy with the current leadership’s insistence that they are helpless to influence matters on a national level.

We are also told that during Tuesday’s meeting, Percy claimed to have no knowledge of the Human Rights Watch report showing PIF’s direct links to human rights abuses. She has had plenty of opportunity to acquaint herself with the issues raised in the report – in May 2024, she was part of a delegation that went from Newcastle to Riyadh as part of a two day trade mission to Saudi Arabia, which was led by then Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. The delegation from Newcastle put the football club at the centre of their information pack for the trip, mentioning the takeover in the summary of their panel’s topic: “Newcastle upon Tyne: Building A Gateway to Saudi Through Innovative Trade and Investment”.

A Newcastle delegation featuring Percy had taken a similar approach at the Cannes real estate convention MIPIM 2022, referring to the club’s ownership in the summary of their panel’s topic: "A £300m investment in Newcastle United Football Club".

You would hope that a council employee taking this approach towards Saudi investment has taken the time to familiarise themselves with the Public Investment Fund's involvement in human rights abuses.

Following the trip to MIPIM 2022, Michelle Percy emailed Staveley to tell her how enthused she had been by her contribution, and, unbeknown to the council’s constituents, she even suggested that Staveley could meet with the council once every 2 months so that she could have a “state of the nation overview” and “high level overview of the city and the region” which would give her “a chance to influence or be part of the work we are doing.”

We do not know what work the council has completed that was influenced by Staveley, who obviously had not been elected or appointed to any local authority position.

Despite the fact that she no longer has a role at NUFC, Staveley still appears to retain some measure of influence at the council. She was invited to the council’s event to mark International Women’s Day on 7th March, where she was a keynote speaker. While the council seemed hesitant to be seen with advocates for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, they were happy to associate International Women’s Day with someone who has acted as a representative for the Saudi regime in this country.

It shouldn’t be necessary to issue a reminder that the main reason Staveley was in contact with council officials was in her role as the frontwoman for one of the most despotic regimes on the planet. In addition to this she had been subject to an IVA, and was later to have her company liquidated following a successful application for a winding up petition by one of her creditors.

Given Staveley’s background, you would have expected a local authority to retain some distance from her, while treating her with a degree of caution. You would also have expected them to be extremely mindful of the nature of the regime Newcastle United board members are representing. Instead it appears she was given the opportunity by Percy to exercise an enormous amount of influence over the city despite having no real standing to do so.

It’s disappointing that someone who has shown such an unrestrained approach to developing the city’s relations with Saudi Arabia was put in a position to influence Tuesday’s meeting with the human rights delegation. When Kilgour’s comments are viewed alongside Michelle Percy’s actions since the takeover’s completion, it seems that the council are very selective in choosing when they are or aren’t helpless when it comes to their relationship with Saudi Arabia. 

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