Ex-ambassador: 'UK has lost moral authority'

Published on Tuesday 16 February 2010 21:59

AN OUTSPOKEN former British ambassador has said that the UK should disband because it has "lost any moral authority it had".

Craig Murray, 51, also challenged the authority of UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in Scotland, saying that his legal writ sanctioning the Iraq war "carried not a milligram of weight in Scotland".

The Scottish human rights activist was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004, before controversially leaving the post. He has been Dundee University's rector for the last three years, a post he is about to hand over to actor Brian Cox.

Speaking at the Scottish Independence Convention, Mr Murray said: "The United Kingdom is not an entity that deserves to exist because it has lost any moral authority it had.

"Tony Blair's failure to consider the human cost of war has brought us to where we are today and the only way to right the situation is to split up the UK.

"One of the things that makes Scotland a nation is that it has its own legal system. Lord Goldsmith was never Attorney General in Scotland. His legal writ sanctioning the Iraq war carried not a milligram of weight in Scotland. Scotland has a Lord Advocate."

Mr Murray also referred to his 20-year career with the Foreign Office taking part in international negotiations and working closely with diplomats from other small European countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Sweden.

He said: "The Irish carried much more weight in multi-lateral negotiations than a country that size could expect. I still am deeply puzzled that there should be a perception that the Scots can't do that."

Mr Murray, who is also an honorary research fellow at the University of Lancaster, is to be played by actor David Tennant in a new BBC Radio 4 play, which is to be aired on 20 February.

The Doctor Who star will depict the "flawed hero" Murray – who left his wife of 20 years for a Uzbek girl half his age while in post – in a play by political director David Hare. His script is an adaptation of Mr Murray's own book Murder in Samarkand.