Foreign Minister David Lammy’s visit to Morocco was the first of a senior British minister in 14 years. In the joint communiqué released during the trip, London nonetheless stressed the longstanding history of relations between the two kingdoms. “Contact between both Crowns was first made in the 13th century,” notes the release. The Treaty of Peace and Commerce, an accord between the two nations signed 300 years ago, was the first diplomatic indication that the two Atlantic countries share many interests. Today, the list of shared interests between the North African and Northern European states looks starkly different, but there remains significant overlap. Morocco and the United Kingdom share a “bilateral trade relationship… worth over £4 billion annually,” claimed the Under Secretary of State for Africa, Lord Collins of Highbury, in the House of Lords. This high volume of bilateral commerce is no accident – trade between Morocco and Britain more than doubled since the UK-Morocco Association Agreement in 2021. 

London’s renewed interest in its trading relations with Morocco sits within the context of its departure of the European Union in 2020. Supporters of ‘Brexit’ heralded a new ‘global Britain’ which would be able to break into fresher pastures theretofore unavailable. The EU continues to possess an unfavourable view on Morocco’s assertions over its territorial boundaries, culminating in 2024 in the Bloc’s court annulling certain trade deals with the country. While the UK is not the only European country to recognise the full extent Morocco’s current boundaries (France, Spain and Germany already did) its status as a non-EU member has allowed its export credit agency, UK Export Finance, to commit £5 billion to projects across the entirety of Morocco’s territory, including Western Sahara.

There is little coincidence that Britain’s alacrity in striking a deal with Morocco comes at a time of fiscal desperation at home. Reuters reported on the 15th of May that current growth in the United Kingdom had grown to 0.7%, something meekly heralded as a success by the economic establishment. On the 3rd of May, the IMF softened Britain’s forecasted growth this year from 1.6% to 1.1%, as the Kingdom is buffeted by American fiscal instability. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies reminds us, adjusted for inflation, the average British worker earns a lower wage than he did before the 2008 Great Recession. Morocco, by comparison, continues to see a healthy growth rate well above 3%. The large but stagnating economies of Northern Europe therefore look to take a slice of the pie in fast-growing emerging markets, hence the moniker “engine of growth” used to describe the African continent in the British communiqué. Yet for propitious economic partnerships to be fostered, the continent’s politics have to remain expedient to Western interests. In much of Africa, the reverse is true. 

This switch of spiritual allegiance is exemplified by the popularity of Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore, known for his defiance towards Western extractive commercial practices in West Africa. This has brought him much popularity both home and abroad – note his appearance in Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations – and is also drawing the support of an ever-confident and ever-disillusioned African youth beyond the borders of Burkina Faso. “There is polarized anger towards a scapegoat that is the West” claimed Babacar Ndiaye of the Timbuktu Institute for Peace Studies in an interview with the Associated Press. But it’s true that many Western commercial practices have belatedly drawn the ire of many African countries. Mali’s military junta, though facing fierce legal resistance, recently attempted to seize state control of its largest gold mine from Canadian-based multinational, Barrick, whose Bamako offices were also shut down. This, paired with the profusion of Chinese-sponsored infrastructure projects across the continent and Russian private military cooperation, is an alarming turn for the West. This makes Morocco’s cooperation all the more precious. 

Perhaps most salient is the role Rabat plays as geographical gateway to Europe for Sub-Saharan migrants. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported that over the past five years, Moroccan authorities have stopped almost 400,000 migrants from reaching Europe.  As the anti-immigration far-right rapidly gains ground in elections across the continent (Reform UK currently polls better than any other party in Britain), cooperation with countries such as Morocco, Libya and Turkey is as crucial as ever for the survival of the European establishment.

So, Morocco stands in a position of strength when entering negotiations with European powers. It remains a vital partner in an era wherein countries that aren’t typically aligned with certain powers have the liberty of shopping around for economic alliances and political support. With the international rules-based order facing deadly threats from the globe’s response to Gaza, the war in Ukraine and increased multipolarity, a friendly Rabat is worth more to the West than the Moroccan public may immediately believe. An EU-wide recognition of Morocco’s autonomy in the Western Sahara could therefore be around the corner.