CAAT report describes how governments have continued supplying arms despite evidence of war crimes
September 2026
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade have just published a report called Dead Letter in which it details successive government’s determination to continue to supply arms despite mounting evidence of mass killing and war crimes. Reading the report it is difficult to believe we have governments with any semblance of integrity or humanity.
CAAT and other human rights agencies including Amnesty, have made various attempts to challenge the government but the legal process has been sadly and woefully insufficient to force them to change their ways. We have documented over several years the UK’s involvement in Yemen and more recently, Gaza and described the horrific death tolls which have taken place in both theatres.
Yemen
Up to the end of 2021, around 377,000 died in Yemen. The Saudis attacked population areas including hospitals, mosques, public gatherings, and food, water, energy and transport infra-structure. Few of these had a military objective. Despite copious evidence from a range of human rights organisations, the UN and observers on the ground the government claimed ‘it had not found evidence of International Human Rights non compliance‘. It relied solely on the evidence produced by the Saudis’ own Joint Incident Assessment Team which unsurprisingly, found nothing wrong. All other evidence was ignored.
Further, they argued that a small number of incidents did not represent a pattern despite the huge number of raids and the resulting death toll. British companies and the RAF were directly involved in the destruction.
Gaza
A similar pattern of behaviour was evident in Gaza. Here, despite the massive destruction of property in the territory, the policy of NAZA which involves bombing an entire apartment block in order to kill one suspected Hamas operative, the government steadfastly continued to supply arms to Israel. Their arguments here were specious beyond belief. Despite knowing of the destruction and killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, they claimed they did not have sufficient information as to why the IDF and therefore could not conclude that it was a breach of IHL. This despite copious statements by senior Israeli politicians making it plain they were seeking the destruction of Palestinians.
Webinar
CAAT organised a webinar on 24th September which speakers from Mwatana and Shadow World Investigations discussed the report and its implications. An additional aspect is the ‘revolving door’ where senior military personnel, civil servants from the MoD and some politicians, take up lucrative directorships or consultancies when they retire. This thoroughly unsatisfactory and corrupt system goes a long way to explaining the almost desperate desire of governments to do almost anything to continue selling arms despite the terrible consequences of doing so.
It has had an effect on our politics in the UK. So desperate are the government that our democracy is being subverted. Protestors are arrested and the freedom of association is being curbed. Just reflect that our government is busy selling arms which cause terrible destruction and do not seem to achieve any tangible benefits for anyone at all (belligerents included) yet it is protestors who are arrested and accused of terrorism. Even the judicial process is corrupted by altering charges after sentence had been passed.
Special contempt was reserved for Sir Keir Starmer and his dreadful statement on the cutting off of food, water and power to Gaza. The Channel 4 Despatches programme aired on 24th, discusses the same issues focusing mostly on Gaza. It has obtained a mass of internal Foreign Office documentation showing that the government well knew what was happening but chose to look the other way. David Cameron comes off particularly badly.
Political process
The report is a must read and sets out in detail the extent to which our politics have been corrupted by the arms trade. The problem is that both main parties are involved so that there is no proper scrutiny. Recent events and statements by Ed Miliband are encouraging as far as they go but such are the tentacles of corruption whether real change will take place remains to be seen.
However, one is left with the question: why do our politicians twist themselves into such contortions to defend the indefensible?
Image prepared by AI
