The growing rift between two Gulf powers will be felt across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa

In 2017, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates spearheaded a blockade of Qatar, disrupting trade, stability and lives in the region. Their de facto leaders – the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abu Dhabi’s then crown prince, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, now president of the UAE – had forged a close alliance. The older man had eagerly promoted the younger Saudi royal in Washington and elsewhere, and was seen as his mentor. Riyadh borrowed aspects of the UAE’s model, and the countries together intervened – at huge cost – against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Together they sought to contain the Arab spring and backed authoritarian rule in Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere.

Yet by 2023 the relationship had soured: the Saudi crown prince reportedly accused the UAE of “stabb[ing] us in the back”. Late last year the disputes became spectacularly public. In Yemen, Southern secessionists backed by the UAE made dramatic advances in oil-rich areas – before being forced out by Saudi-backed forces. Riyadh effectively described the UAE as threatening its national security. Saudi commentators voiced increasing contempt for the kingdom’s former partner. In turn, a senior Emirati official complained of “wickedness” in the media campaign against it.

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Aidan Doyle was an estate agent in Liverpool before he decamped to Dubai and turned a £30,000 annual income into £500,000 a year and climbing.

Acting as an agent for buyers and sellers, Doyle has seen his commission soar beyond anything he could hope to generate in the UK after just three years in the city, one of seven city-states in the United Arab Emirates.