Ryan Henson is Chief Executive of the Coalition for Global Prosperity and stood in Bedford in 2019
The Middle East is on a knife edge.
Pakistan may have hosted negotiations to broker a precarious ceasefire between the United States and Iran but conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has continued largely unabated across Lebanon’s southern border. The Strait of Hormuz – through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes – remains essentially blocked. Although it may be taking place 3,000 miles away from our shores, the effects are already being keenly felt. We see them every day in our mortgages, petrol prices, and food bills. And absorbing the pressure from every direction, sits Lebanon.
This is by no means a new crisis.
Long before this latest escalation, Lebanon was already in trouble. I saw this first hand four years ago when I met with aid workers and senior government officials in the country. Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019 was one of the worst in modern history, and for decades, forces hostile to Western interests have been stepping into the vacuum created by the steady erosion of state institutions. The ramifications are increasingly clear, yet our approach has long been too slow to reflect them. It is in Britain’s interest to see Lebanon succeed.
Take illegal migration. Roughly a quarter of the Lebanese population are Syrian refugees – that is more refugees per capita than any other country on earth. Without support, there will come a limit to how many more they can absorb. When states collapse, people move. Syrian asylum claims in Britain rose by 70 per cent last year. That is not a coincidence; it is a consequence. Lebanon today is a forward buffer between the Syrian refugee crisis and the shores of Europe. If it fails, that buffer disappears. Keeping Lebanon stable is not an act of generosity. It is our first line of defence against an additional tide of small boats.
Recent events have also shown Lebanon to be a nexus of the ongoing conflict in the region, given the influence Hezbollah – Tehran’s most potent proxy – continues to bear. Britain has a material economic stake in what happens next. We are an energy-importing nation, dependent on open shipping lanes and stable global supply chains. Both are directly exposed to escalation in the region. JP Morgan estimates that regional shipping disruption alone – a result of Houthi attacks – added nearly a full percentage point to global goods inflation in the first half of 2024. Recent remarks by Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Minister, about moving Israel’s border into Lebanon risk inflaming the situation. They undermine international law, weaken an already fragile Lebanese government, embolden Hezbollah and serve as a recruitment poster, while risking economic consequences beyond those Britain is already absorbing.
Crucially, Lebanon’s fragility is not just an opportunity for Iran and its proxies, but a breeding ground for Russian coercive influence, increasingly enabled by Britain’s retreat from the region. Cutting funding to the BBC World Service was a strategic error that recent aid spending, while welcome, does not come close to rectifying. As one of the UK’s most effective soft power tools and the world’s most trusted news broadcaster, the World Service left a vacuum in Lebanon that Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news service, filled within months. Launching a 24-hour broadcast on the very frequency Britain abandoned, it has become both a symbolic and literal replacement of British influence. Russian propaganda is now recycled by domestic outlets and reaches wide audiences, giving Moscow the foothold it needs to build lasting influence in an already vulnerable country.
In recent years, Israel has decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership and severely degraded its conventional power. Yet the group endures – and will continue to do so – in part because military force alone does not address the conditions that sustain it. For decades, Hezbollah has filled the void left by the Lebanese state, providing healthcare, education and reconstruction where government services are absent. Many civilians rely on these services out of necessity rather than ideology. A functioning Lebanese government, capable of delivering security and the same essential public services, is the critical component in any long-term solution. And on this, the UK can play a vital role. Working in close partnership with European and regional allies, through targeted development assistance, we can help strengthen Lebanon’s governance structures, public services and military – depriving Hezbollah of its social contract. Lasting security in Lebanon will come from a state strong enough to make Hezbollah’s offer redundant.
This is not uncharted territory for Britain. Jordan, one of our closest allies in the Middle East, hosts 700,000 Syrian and two million Palestinian refugees in a country of eleven million – a comparable burden to Lebanon’s – and sustained British investment in security, governance and development has helped bolster its institutions. When Covid hit, £34 million in UK emergency social protection reached 300,000 Jordanian households. Lebanon presents a harder challenge, but we have to recognise that ‘mowing the lawn’ alone won’t kill all the weeds. Aid directed at public services and institution building can reshape what a state is capable of delivering and Britain has the expertise to help make that happen.
At a time when military options – as President Trump is now finding out to his cost – can only achieve so much and escalation is the alternative on offer, Britain still has levers that matter. We have unique historic ties, centuries of diplomatic relationships, and a genuine convening power that few can match. Aid is not a soft option, nor is it a silver bullet. Used well, it is a strategic instrument that strengthens governance, builds state capacity, and addresses the underlying dynamic rather than just managing its symptoms. Lebanon’s trajectory will shape migration flows, regional security and the balance of influence in the Middle East in ways Britain will feel directly.
The cost of engagement is real. The cost of neglect is higher.
Ryan Henson is Chief Executive of the Coalition for Global Prosperity and stood in Bedford in 2019
The Middle East is on a knife edge.
Pakistan may have hosted negotiations to broker a precarious ceasefire between the United States and Iran but conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has continued largely unabated across Lebanon’s southern border. The Strait of Hormuz – through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes – remains essentially blocked. Although it may be taking place 3,000 miles away from our shores, the effects are already being keenly felt. We see them every day in our mortgages, petrol prices, and food bills. And absorbing the pressure from every direction, sits Lebanon.
This is by no means a new crisis.
Long before this latest escalation, Lebanon was already in trouble. I saw this first hand four years ago when I met with aid workers and senior government officials in the country. Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019 was one of the worst in modern history, and for decades, forces hostile to Western interests have been stepping into the vacuum created by the steady erosion of state institutions. The ramifications are increasingly clear, yet our approach has long been too slow to reflect them. It is in Britain’s interest to see Lebanon succeed.
Take illegal migration. Roughly a quarter of the Lebanese population are Syrian refugees – that is more refugees per capita than any other country on earth. Without support, there will come a limit to how many more they can absorb. When states collapse, people move. Syrian asylum claims in Britain rose by 70 per cent last year. That is not a coincidence; it is a consequence. Lebanon today is a forward buffer between the Syrian refugee crisis and the shores of Europe. If it fails, that buffer disappears. Keeping Lebanon stable is not an act of generosity. It is our first line of defence against an additional tide of small boats.
Recent events have also shown Lebanon to be a nexus of the ongoing conflict in the region, given the influence Hezbollah – Tehran’s most potent proxy – continues to bear. Britain has a material economic stake in what happens next. We are an energy-importing nation, dependent on open shipping lanes and stable global supply chains. Both are directly exposed to escalation in the region. JP Morgan estimates that regional shipping disruption alone – a result of Houthi attacks – added nearly a full percentage point to global goods inflation in the first half of 2024. Recent remarks by Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Minister, about moving Israel’s border into Lebanon risk inflaming the situation. They undermine international law, weaken an already fragile Lebanese government, embolden Hezbollah and serve as a recruitment poster, while risking economic consequences beyond those Britain is already absorbing.
Crucially, Lebanon’s fragility is not just an opportunity for Iran and its proxies, but a breeding ground for Russian coercive influence, increasingly enabled by Britain’s retreat from the region. Cutting funding to the BBC World Service was a strategic error that recent aid spending, while welcome, does not come close to rectifying. As one of the UK’s most effective soft power tools and the world’s most trusted news broadcaster, the World Service left a vacuum in Lebanon that Sputnik, a Russian state-owned news service, filled within months. Launching a 24-hour broadcast on the very frequency Britain abandoned, it has become both a symbolic and literal replacement of British influence. Russian propaganda is now recycled by domestic outlets and reaches wide audiences, giving Moscow the foothold it needs to build lasting influence in an already vulnerable country.
In recent years, Israel has decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership and severely degraded its conventional power. Yet the group endures – and will continue to do so – in part because military force alone does not address the conditions that sustain it. For decades, Hezbollah has filled the void left by the Lebanese state, providing healthcare, education and reconstruction where government services are absent. Many civilians rely on these services out of necessity rather than ideology. A functioning Lebanese government, capable of delivering security and the same essential public services, is the critical component in any long-term solution. And on this, the UK can play a vital role. Working in close partnership with European and regional allies, through targeted development assistance, we can help strengthen Lebanon’s governance structures, public services and military – depriving Hezbollah of its social contract. Lasting security in Lebanon will come from a state strong enough to make Hezbollah’s offer redundant.
This is not uncharted territory for Britain. Jordan, one of our closest allies in the Middle East, hosts 700,000 Syrian and two million Palestinian refugees in a country of eleven million – a comparable burden to Lebanon’s – and sustained British investment in security, governance and development has helped bolster its institutions. When Covid hit, £34 million in UK emergency social protection reached 300,000 Jordanian households. Lebanon presents a harder challenge, but we have to recognise that ‘mowing the lawn’ alone won’t kill all the weeds. Aid directed at public services and institution building can reshape what a state is capable of delivering and Britain has the expertise to help make that happen.
At a time when military options – as President Trump is now finding out to his cost – can only achieve so much and escalation is the alternative on offer, Britain still has levers that matter. We have unique historic ties, centuries of diplomatic relationships, and a genuine convening power that few can match. Aid is not a soft option, nor is it a silver bullet. Used well, it is a strategic instrument that strengthens governance, builds state capacity, and addresses the underlying dynamic rather than just managing its symptoms. Lebanon’s trajectory will shape migration flows, regional security and the balance of influence in the Middle East in ways Britain will feel directly.
The cost of engagement is real. The cost of neglect is higher.