EXCLUSIVE: Alleged dispute over extending Baroness Scotland’s term

A NUMBER of angry high commissioners have turned on Australia, Britain and Canada for trying to get rid of Commonwealth secretary-general Patricia Scotland, it can be revealed.

Commonwealth insiders told Eastern Eye that in a “fractious” meeting at the secretariat’s headquarters in London last Thursday (6), one envoy after another “laid into” what are called the ABC countries.

They also criticised New Zealand for threatening to pull its funding, describing the move as “blackmail”.

It followed a report from the BBC saying that it had obtained a leaked letter from the prime minister, Boris Johnson, which suggested that an alternative candidate could stand against Scotland.

A source told Eastern Eye that the meeting started cordially enough, but deteriorated when the ABC countries said Scotland should not automatically be given a fouryear second term.

If that does not happen, she will become the first secretary-general in the organisation’s history to serve just one term.

“One country after another went for them with real venom,” the source said. “Member states said that what they were suggesting was nothing more than neo-colonialism, pure and simple, and that was a disgrace. They were told in no uncertain terms that only the heads of state could decide the fate of the secretary-general.

“In the end, it was 50 against four, and the ABC countries and New Zealand had no choice but to back down.”

The secretary-general’s future will now be decided at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, in June by country leaders. People would try to paint this as countries “playing the race card”, the source said, but insisted the anger was genuine and more nuanced. The envoys also condemned the members which have threatened to withdraw funding from the Commonwealth.

“The high commissioners were angry that the ABCs were threatening small vulnerable countries and least developed countries,” said one insider “The ABCs were told to stop maligning the secretary-general and the work she and her team were doing. They are removing much-needed cash for technical assistance from a secretariat in financial dire straits. They said this pernicious threat amounted to blackmail, and they would simply walk away from the Commonwealth.”

A source said the diplomats also strongly criticised the leak of a confidential report from global consultants KPMG, which claimed that the secretary-general had “circumvented” rules in hiring former Labour peer, Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford.

Last week, Eastern Eye revealed exclusively that another confidential report which explained Scotland had done nothing wrong was accepted by the auditors and the chair of the board of governors. The source said, “The high commissioners were angry that they first read about a confidential audit report in the press. They said it was a disgrace and must stop. It’s not the way one family member treats another.”

The in-fighting will do little to help the reputation of the Commonwealth, whose head is the Queen.

Last week Eastern Eye revealed that Lord Patel wrote an “explosive and dynamite” set of reports calling for wide-ranging reforms after his team and he carried out a rootand-branch review of practices before Scotland took over. A rebuttal document said the administration under the previous Commonwealth boss “was suffering from financial haemorrhage, and the board of governors was concerned about chronic underspending, structural mismatch, a pension funding hole, and rapidly declining funding to the secretariat.”

Eastern Eye approached the secretariat for comment. A spokesman said, “Meetings of high commissioners at Commonwealth headquarters are confidential, and I cannot comment on them.” The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, meanwhile, said it “would not comment on private meetings.”

The Canadian government revealed it stopped its voluntary contributions to the secretariat in 2014, before Scotland took office, and it has “no current plans to reinstate it”. However, it did explain that Canada continued to be “the second largest contributor of the Commonwealth through our assessed contributions to the Commonwealth secretariat and Commonwealth Foundation, and voluntary funding to the Commonwealth of Learning”.

A spokesperson said, “The decision to appoint or re-appoint Commonwealth secretaries general belongs to the 54 Commonwealth heads of government.”

The Australian and New Zealand high commissions in London did not respond to Eastern Eye’s request for a comment.