UAE Lobbying Contract Puts UK Influence Work Under Scrutiny

FGS Global has been on the register of lobbyists for the UAE embassy since October 2025, with a paid brief to “promote awareness of the UAE-UK bilateral relationship.” Its stated targets include members of the Commons and the Lords, along with politicians in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments. The firm’s founder and chair, Roland Rudd, sits on the UK Soft Power Council, an advisory body that helps shape how Britain projects influence abroad through sport and culture. Democracy for Sale can reveal the overlap.

The council is a functioning part of the government’s delivery apparatus. Launched in January 2025 and co-chaired by the foreign and culture secretaries, it meets quarterly to advise on how to harness soft power “through international interventions in support of foreign policy priorities”. Its two dozen members include representatives of the Football Association, the British Council, Universities UK and Historic England. FGS is the only lobbying firm on the body.

The timing matters for what the council is advising on. Rudd’s position places the head of a firm working for the UAE on a body whose remit covers sport, at a moment when the Gulf state’s role in British football is under unprecedented scrutiny. Manchester City faces the prospect of major sporting sanctions after being found to have breached football’s financial rules over 100 times. The club’s Abu Dhabi owners reportedly held talks with a UK government minister last week, and opposition politicians have raised questions about prime minister Andy Burnham’s dealings with the UAE during his time as Manchester mayor.

The UAE also holds a direct stake in British foreign policy delivery. Britain continues to license arms exports to the UAE, despite widespread allegations, which it denies, that it has supplied weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that has committed mass killings in Sudan’s civil war.

The operational record of the lobbying work is visible in official disclosures. Since FGS began representing the UAE, it has entertained some of the most senior figures in government: Rachel Reeves, then chancellor; the prime minister’s chief business adviser Varun Chandra; and Antonia Romeo, now the UK’s most senior civil servant. Lord Stockwood, then investment minister, and Jonathan Reynolds, then chief whip and now business secretary, were also wined and dined, along with officials at the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade.

How those engagements were logged is central to the accountability question. Every occasion was recorded as hospitality rather than as a meeting, so no minutes were taken and there is no public record of what was discussed. There is no suggestion that the UAE or any other FGS client was raised.

Transparency campaigners argue the system is not delivering what it promises. Kamila Kingstone, senior policy and campaign lead at Spotlight on Corruption, said: “The rules are clear: hospitality that includes a meeting must be recorded as a meeting, with a description of the purpose given.” She added that until there are meaningful consequences for non-compliance, the public will not have a clear picture of who is influencing their politicians. Tom Brake, chief executive of Unlock Democracy, said that if senior ministers and officials are sitting down with lobbyists, the public has a right to know what was discussed, especially when the firm involved is working on behalf of a foreign government.

Meanwhile, political pressure is building. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller MP told Democracy for Sale that “allowing anyone on a foreign government’s payroll to sit on an advisory body shaping UK foreign and sport policies would present a blatant conflict of interest.” He added: “The public has a right to know whether Roland Rudd raised the UAE’s interests with Ministers and what commitments they gave him. The Government must come clean about what was discussed and agreed behind closed doors.”

The institutions involved have responded within the limits of their processes. FGS said Rudd’s position at the consultancy was “always declared in relation to his unpaid public roles”. The Foreign Office said “all appointments to government bodies are subject to an appropriate due diligence process.” A government spokesperson said ministers and officials “meet and engage with a wide range of external organisations”, and that transparency data “is published in line with the Ministerial Code and transparency guidance.”

Rudd himself is one of the best-connected figures in British public relations. He founded the City PR firm Finsbury in 1994, which later merged into FGS Global. His sister, the former Conservative home secretary Amber Rudd, was criticised in 2015 for not declaring her brother’s lobbying business while energy secretary, after her department approved a gas storage project represented by his firm. FGS, majority-owned by the private equity giant KKR, describes itself as a “strategic leadership advisory” and does not publish a full list of its clients. Transparency disclosures show it has lobbied for KKR, the trading platform Robinhood and Oracle, the US tech company that has won millions of pounds in UK government contracts. FGS has also hired a number of staff from Global Counsel, the now defunct lobbying outfit co-founded by Peter Mandelson.

Rudd declined to comment personally, and the Soft Power Council did not respond to questions. What remains on the record is the gap between the paperwork and the practice: engagements logged as hospitality, an advisory seat held alongside a paid lobbying brief, and no public account of what was said behind closed doors. Whether the government’s due diligence process catches such overlaps before the next appointment is the question the record leaves open.