On 12 July, the Government of National Stability (GNS) Prime Minister, Fathi Bashaagha, addressed the UK Foreign Affairs Committee in Arabic via video link from a ruined building in Sirte. The chair of the committee, Tom Tugendhat, stressed that Bashaagha was not there by invite of the UK Parliament or UK Government, but was providing evidence in his capacity as an individual. The agenda for the event stated that Bashaagha would be giving evidence on UK-Libya relations, yet Bashaagha mainly used the forum to criticise Abdul Hameed Dabaiba’s Government of National Unity (GNU) as illegitimate, corrupt and incompetent and to condemn the UK government for its continued support for the GNU. He also claimed his government had the support of ‘several’ Arab and European nations. Bashaagha was asked about the ongoing oil blockade, with Bashaagha responding that the issue would be unlikely to be resolved until the GNS budget was recognised by the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) and oil revenues were prevented from flowing to the GNU.
