Pip: If you’ve ever wondered why British arms keep flowing to conflict zones despite mountains of evidence of civilian harm, welland2 has spent considerable effort mapping the answer — and it turns out “political cowardice, greed, and some perverse thinking” covers a lot of ground.
Mara: This episode follows that investigation closely — the machinery behind UK arms exports, the seven structural reasons those exports continue, and what it means for Gaza, Yemen, and British credibility on the world stage. Let’s start with how those exports get justified, and why they keep surviving scrutiny.
From Gaza to Yemen: Why UK Arms Sales Keep Flowing
Pip: The central question here is not whether harm is happening — the evidence on civilian deaths, destroyed hospitals, and ethnic cleansing is described as copious — but why successive governments, across both main parties, have worked so hard to keep the arms flowing anyway.
Mara: The post lays out the official reasoning and then dismantles it. On the pattern of civilian harm, it quotes directly: “a few incidents do not a pattern make, and the motives of those doing the killing cannot be known.”
Pip: That framing — we can’t know why they’re bombing the hospital — is doing a lot of work for a lot of arms licenses. The post calls the overall picture, plainly, lying.
Mara: Seven structural reasons are offered. Economics comes first: around 300,000 people are employed in the sector, many in marginal constituencies. But York University studies are cited showing the net economic value is nowhere near the headline figures once corporate welfare is factored in.
Pip: So the jobs argument is itself propped up by subsidies. The revolving door compounds it — 604 individuals moved from ministry or military roles into arms firms between January 2017 and June 2022, with CAAT describing it as “open office” corruption.
Mara: The post also identifies the F-35 issue as a sovereignty problem in plain sight. British-made components go into weapons used over Gaza and Lebanon, but the claim is they can’t be tracked — which the post calls an insult, given that goods are routinely tracked electronically. The real reason, it argues, is unwillingness to confront Washington.
Pip: Sovereignty reclaimed from Brussels, surrendered quietly to the Pentagon.
Mara: Fear of the antisemitism label is named as another factor — described as having percolated into media coverage, with the BBC reporting cited for double standards on language around hostages and prisoners. And roughly 150 MPs hold membership in Friends of Israel groups, raising direct questions about impartiality on arms votes.
Mara: The conclusion is direct: “It is a cover for political cowardice, greed and some perverse thinking around supporting Israel and the arms industry generally.” Yemen is named alongside Gaza — years of bombing, a massive death toll, and nothing resolved.
Pip: And the same pattern — unqualified support for Saudi strikes on civilian targets — repeated without apparent reflection.
Mara: The post ends by arguing that arming a regime conducting ethnic cleansing only postpones a reckoning, and that Britain’s role should be supporting dialogue and a viable Palestinian state — a commitment the UK has now formally made. The gap between that commitment and current arms policy is the political failure the piece is naming.
Pip: The stakes don’t get much higher than “destroys any hope born of the post-war Universal Declaration.” That’s where we land.
Mara: The through-line across all of this is the distance between stated values and actual policy — and the structural forces that keep that distance in place.
Pip: Next time, presumably, we find out whether any of those structures have shifted. The evidence so far suggests they are slow movers.
In the previous post we discussed the recent report Dead Letter published by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the webinar held by them, and the Channel 4 Despatches programme, which all described in some detail the contortions carried out by successive governments to justify the selling of arms to murderous regimes. Also discussed was the involvement in the legal system in some of the bizarre reasoning employed to fight off claims by human rights groups such as Al Haq and others that what they were doing was contrary to international human rights law.
The shear extent of what can only be described as lying is staggering. Despite copious evidence of death of civilians and the destruction basic infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and mosques, the bombing of water treatment plants and a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing, successive governments have clung on to arguments such as a lack of evidence, a few incidents do not a pattern make, and the motives of those doing the killing cannot be known. Anything in fact to justify the continuation of arms sales.
Why?
Which prompts the question why? Why are politicians of both main parties so desperately keen to maintain these fictions? Why have they watered down regulations of what can or cannot be sold? Why do they persist in the argument that we have one of the more robust export regimes in the world when patently it is not?
In this essay we want to suggest some reasons. Necessarily, it cannot always be evidenced as efforts are made to conceal anything which might compromise the government or ministers. It is largely speculative therefore. We suggest there are seven major reasons why we have the system we have.
Economic and the need for jobs
The arms industry employs large numbers of people many of whom are in marginal constituencies [it was always argued thus but in view of recent political upheavals, what is or is not a marginal is now somewhat questionable]. There are around 300,000 people employed. Further, it is one of the few sectors in the economy which has seen significant growth. Adopting some kind of moral policy and concerning itself with the rights of those at the receiving end of weaponry, would have a serious effect on these numbers.
Post war effects
After the war, Japan and Germany were unable to develop their arms firms which provided an opportunity for the UK to shine. Whereas those two countries modernised and produced a range of products which steadily ended many UK firms’ ability to compete (cars and electronic goods for example), arms were not among them. Considerable support was provided by the UK government to the industry. However, claims of job creation and economic value are considerably weakened when the degree and scale of ‘corporate welfare’ is taken into account. York University has produced a number of studies showing the net value is nowhere near the headline claims by politicians.
Nevertheless, it is an area where British firms do have a presence on the world stage, despite its questionable economic value.
Close links to the US
It is interesting to reflect on the enormous fuss made at the time of Brexit where ‘take back control’ and ‘regain our sovereignty’ were two of the key messages. Yet we have lost these to the Americans. Witness the F-35 arguments where it is claimed the 15% made in the UK cannot be tracked. They are a key weapon in the destruction of Gaza, bombing of Lebanon and the attack on Iran. The tracking claim is to insult the British people who know full well that goods nowadays are tracked electronically. The reason is not being able to stand up to the Americans and the likely threat to future partnership deals. If our sovereignty was ever lost it has been to the US not Brussels. It is even claimed that the moment the items are manufactured, ownership passes immediately to the US so we cannot embargo their sale to Israel.
Anti-Semitic and anti-Israel claims
Any or all criticism of Israel and its actions are deemed anti-Semitic. These claims seem to have struck fear into the heart of the British political establishment. They were a powerful force in the removal of Jeremy Corbyn. Sir Keir Starmer worked hard to ‘rip out anti-Semitism by its roots’ as he put it. The nature of the anti-Semitism under Corbyn is difficult to bottom out. A lengthy BBC report delves into it in some detail and some of the evidence seem tenuous to say the least. It does appear that the party was slow to take disciplinary action where there were incidents but Corbyn’s stance against anti-Semitism seemed clear. Inevitably, as in any organisation, there are going to be individuals who are anti-Semitic.
What is important is the perception but it does seem clear that the policy of claiming that any or all criticisms of Israel has taken root. It has been effective and has percolated into the BBC and other parts of the media. We reported on the Centre for Media Monitoring’s report into BBC reporting in an earlier post. They describe the double standards, muffling of Palestinian voices and language issues amounting to severe bias. For example, they frequently reported that Hamas seized ‘hostages’ whereas Israelis took ‘prisoners’. Both were hostages and both were kept incommunicado and badly treated. The word ‘prisoner’ suggested some kind of judicial process had taken place. Evidence of an Apartheid state has almost never been mentioned by BBC commentators despite the copious evidence produced by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights groups.
Slowly, things seem to be changing however and the recent statement and actions by Ed Miliband the Foreign Secretary are a welcome if belated sign. Israel is losing the moral high ground and is fast becoming an international pariah. Witness the huge walkout of delegates at the UN when Benjamin Netanyahu rose to speak.
MPs easily manipulated
That around 150 members of parliament are members of their party’s Friends of Israel groups is shocking. In a previous post we discuss how easy Israel seems to find engaging impressionable and naïve newbie MPs to their point of view with cleverly crafted visits to Israel and other financial support.
Any question of curbing sales of arms has to overcome this quiet army of closet supporters of the regime. The question has to be asked: how can an MP properly act dispassionately in deciding what is in Britain’s and Palestinian’s or even Israel’s best interested if they are members of what is believed to be the best funded parliamentary lobby group? Both Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy were staunch members and so is Andy Burnham the new prime minister.
Further, when one or other of these MPs are interviewed, their membership is only rarely mentioned by interviewers.
The Revolving Door
This is the deeply corrupting matter of senior military staff, senior civil servants and ex-ministers, heading off to take up lucrative directorships or consultancies with arms companies. Both Transparency International and CAAT have criticised this. CAAT terms it ‘open office’ corruption.
The numbers are quite staggering. No less than 604 individuals moved from ministry or military roles into arms firms between January 2017 to June 2022. Quite apart from the undue influence taking place, it has led to poor scrutiny, delivery failure and massive budget overruns. The suspicion is that with a promise of a lucrative post retirement appointment, awkward or challenging questions are not asked. Proper scrutiny is not carried out. Neither are questions asked about moral or humanitarian issues arising from the use of the weapons. The now abolished ACOBA controls were widely condemned as toothless.
Racism
Underpinning much of the attitudes and biased media reporting is racism. Arabs and Palestinians are regarded as untrustworthy and uncivilised (algebra?). This appears in claims of Britain being overrun by Moslems and London becoming ‘Londonistan’ subject to Sharia Law: Islamophobia in other words.
Whereas anti-Semitism receives a great deal of coverage (rightly) and necessary police action, anti-Palestinian attitudes do not get the same attention. British politicians like the local MP, Danny Kruger, can quite casually claim that ‘all the deaths in Gaza are the fault of Hamas‘. It is difficult to believe this blanket statement of blame would be applied to an attack on another racial group. There, cries of ‘indiscriminate’ would be heard. The different treatment of Palestinian deaths in comparison with Israeli has been a feature of criticisms of media coverage.
Security
A frequent reason which crops up is security. This argument seems to hinge around the role Israel plays as a source of information about the Middle East. Israel has a fearsome reputation in the field of intelligence and western powers including the UK are keen to avail themselves of it.
Conclusions
To many, the continuing and obdurate policy of successive British governments has been baffling. In the face of mounting evidence, the continued support for arms sales seems insupportable and unconscionable. In this essay, we attempted an explanation based on a variety of factors we have discussed. Essentially they are about money, jobs dependant on the sales, corruption and a willingness of the political elite to follow the Israeli line. Fear of the anti-Semitism tag is also a factor.
It hasn’t just been Israel: a similar pathology has been witnessed in the Yemen conflict. There, unqualified support for the Saudi bombing of multiple civilian targets was seen. Arms are still being supplied to UAE despite strong evidence that they are passed on to the RSF in Sudan.
The public approaches this from having witnessed terrible scenes on the news despite the banning of independent news media into Gaza and the steady murder or assassination of journalists by the IDF. (More have been killed than in any other comparable conflict). Many feel deeply that this isn’t right and the UK should have no part of it.
These views find few favours in Westminster for the reasons we have suggested. Their answer is to erect ever more contorted arguments in support of an indefensible position. This is more than speculative as the Despatches programme revealed. They showed that great efforts were made by the Foreign Office to conceal details and not to leave a paper record. It is a cover for political cowardice, greed and some perverse thinking around supporting Israel and the arms industry generally.
The ultimate tragedy is that it won’t. Supporting a thuggish regime to carry on a programme of violence and ethnic cleansing creating along the way an entire new generation of young people bent on revenge, merely postpones the ultimate reckoning. Israel is a superpower in the region and giving them more and more weapons is merely to pour petrol on a fire. Years of bombing Yemen and a massive death toll has solved nothing.
British involvement in this activity destroys any hope born of the post war Universal Declaration with its claims of ‘never again’. Our role should be to support moderation, dialogue and actively to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state (which the UK is now committed to). Our political class is profoundly letting the nation down. It represents a massive political failure for a range of unworthy reasons.
