By Andrew Spooner

News broke today that the British Prime Minister David Cameron and his family have cancelled their trip to Thailand for their Christmas holiday.

To be honest, he had little choice. The ruling UK Tories are sliding in domestic polls with both left and right drawing daggers against them – a somewhat similar situation that PM Cameron’s former Eton school friend, Thailand’s PM Abhisit, finds himself in (similarities don’t end there – both men failed to get a parliamentary majority). For PM Cameron to have taken an expensive holiday in Thailand, a country now widely considered to have an appalling human rights record, would’ve have not only called into question his taste but also his judgement.

But is PM Cameron’s holiday cancellation evidence that the UK government is hardening it’s line against Thailand’s present regime? Just recently it came to light a Thai national who had been hounded and threatened by PAD fanatics was granted refugee status in the UK. The implications of that are that under Britain’s standing rules and internationally binding agreements on refugees, many more Thai citizens could, theoretically, claim asylum in the UK.

If you bring together both PM Cameron’s holiday cancellation and the UK Border Agency’s granting of this refugee status, then it is very clear that there is a great deal of nervousness in the UK towards Abhisit’s government. There’s no doubt such anxiety is justified given the ongoing persecution of Thailand’s Red Shirt movement.

In my view the UK would do best to sustain this anxiety. If it takes an explicitly anti-Red Shirt position it may find itself with few friends in the Thai government after the election that is strongly rumoured to be called in the first quarter of 2011 and which the Red Shirt-supporting Pheu Thai Party are very likely to win. Such a position would also very likely go down badly domestically for PM Cameron’s government, particularly if moves to have Thailand’s and PM Abhisit’s Democract Party kicked out of the Liberal International (an organisation co-founded by a previous incarnation of PM Cameron’s UK coalition government partners, the Liberal Democrats) are successful.

Of course, the other significant rumour in Thailand is not of an election but of a coup. If that rumour plays out then any pro-Thai establishment line adopted by PM Cameron’s government will completely backfire as they will quite rightly be seen to have been sympathetic to a military takeover. This would be a shocking abandonment of the principle of the rule of law and democracy by the UK’s Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government’s foreign policy and would be a significant set-back for Asian human rights. Such a set-back would certainly include Burma and China who would view any UK sympathy towards authoritarianism in Thailand as encourgement to completely ignore overtures from Western governments to improve their own human rights’ records.

Yet, while my personal instincts are always to take the most progressive route it is clear that if the UK mission in Thailand is perceived to jump behind any one side too strongly, then this will damage the UK’s  long term interests in Thailand. However, there is no doubt that any UK government is mandated to do its best to help extend democracy and accountability. And while caution and a good deal of anxiety are probably the best ways forward, PM Cameron’s foreign policy regarding Thailand must not lose sight of its values or ethics.

 Andrew Spooner can be found on twitter  – @andrewspooner