Robert Mugabe loves nothing more than taunting British leaders and Gordon Brown’s threat to boycott an EU-Africa summit which the Zimbabwean leader would probably have not gone to anyway will have brought a large smile to his face.

Mr Brown’s tough stand in saying he will not attend the meeting in Lisbon if Mr Mugabe is invited is seen in Africa as meaningless grandstanding and, if anything, counter-productive.

“This is seen as ritualistic gesturing which will have little or no impact,” Steven Friedman, of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, told The Times.

Political analysts say that Mr Mugabe will twist the issue to present it as the former colonial master still insisting on trying to call the shots in its old colony, one of his favourite tactics and, though laughable to many Africans, particularly in Zimbabwe, it is an argument that still resonates among much of Africa’s elite.

“Mugabe has long portrayed the opposition as being stooges in the pocket of the British Government; things like this just play into that,” Mr Freidman, an expert on Zimbabwe, added.

Several African states are secretly furious with Mr Mugabe for the negative publicity he is attracting to the continent at a time when it faces less civil conflict than for decades and the Chinese-led commodities boom is fuelling important new investments.

At the same time, Mr Mugabe’s constant and cunning appeal to his glory days as one of the foremost leaders of the liberation struggle means that few other African leaders would come out and criticise him – a fact he knows only too well.

“Overall the impact of Brown’s stand is neutral — it will have no effect one way or the other, and it certainly will not help to improve matters in Zimbabwe,” another regional analyst said.

Zimbabwe seized the opportunity to embarrass both the European Union and its critics in Africa today and said that the British Prime Minister was “wasting his time” with his threats. The Deputy Information Minister, Bright Matonga, said: “President Mugabe was invited and he is going to Lisbon as Zimbabwe’s representative whether Gordon Brown attends or not.”

The issue could now threaten the summit entirely. Most African states, even those fiercely critical of Zimbabwe in private, such as Zambia and Nigeria, will fall in line with the argument that it is not up to host countries, especially those waging dubious colonial-style wars, to tell sovereign independent states who can represent them at international gatherings.

“Mugabe would love to spark off a debate on who has committed most human rights violations in Africa — Britain or independent Zimbabwe,” said Buchizya Mseteka, a Zambian political commentator. “You people just do not understand Mugabe. This will be presented as Western hypocrisy.”

That view was echoed today by European politicians who accused Mr Brown of “double standards”. Paolo Casaca, the Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, said that Britain did not pull out of a meeting with South East Asian states this year at which Burma, whose leaders are also accused of human rights violations, was represented.

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