UK arms export control is rotten to its core!

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Dear Supporter,

As you may have seen in The Guardian on 10th February, [testimony from Mark Smith]([link removed]), a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, has confirmed what we’ve argued for decades: the UK’s arms export control system is rotten to its core.

As CAAT marks our 50th anniversary, this important whistleblower evidence shows that our work is more vital than ever, and we hope that you are able to continue supporting our work to campaign for the radical changes needed to our arms export licensing system.

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Smith stated that “What I witnessed was not just moral failure but conduct that I believe crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes.”

In August 2024, Smith resigned over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza, following a year of internal lobbying and whistleblowing. As an official responsible for assessing Saudi Arabia’s compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen, he was repeatedly told to revise or “rebalance” his reports to make them less damning of Saudi's conduct, and to give an appearance of “progress”. Officials were told to delete correspondence that gave a more negative picture.

When [CAAT took the government to court]([link removed] to stop arming Saudi Arabia, we witnessed first hand the way the government employed these tactics in the face of overwhelming evidence of horrific war crimes perpetrated by the Saudi regime in Yemen. The key legal and moral questions were essentially the same: How could the UK government continue supplying arms in the face of overwhelming evidence of the most horrific crimes being committed against civilians?

Smith’s evidence shows that the only way for the Foreign Office to keep doing this was through bullying civil servants and diplomats into changing their reports, warning them not to leave any written evidence, or even asking them to “delete correspondence”. There has been a systematic effort to manipulate and suppress the truth.

According to Smith: “In a high-level meeting with senior officials, including legal advisers, it was acknowledged that the UK had exceeded the threshold for halting arms sales. Yet instead of advising ministers to suspend exports, the focus shifted to finding ways to “get back on the right side” of the law.” Ministers employed delaying tactics and repeated requests for “more evidence”, even when the picture of serious violations was clear.

Sadly, what this shows is not a “broken” export licensing system, but one that is working exactly as intended – as Smith says, it serves “...to create a façade of legitimacy, while allowing the most egregious crimes against humanity to take place.”

Smith’s evidence mirrors the experience of campaigners and activists. He followed every internal procedure available to raise his concerns, which ranged from engaging with the whistleblowing secretary and even contacting the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, directly.

He concluded that:

“It became clear that the system is not designed to hold itself accountable – it is designed to protect itself at all costs.”

This is, without doubt, a system rotten to the core. But there are fundamental questions that need to be asked about why the system works in this way and why successive governments have bent over backwards to justify selling arms in the knowledge that they’ll be used to commit or facilitate horrific war crimes.

The answer lies in the power and influence of the arms trade.

CAAT’s [2024 report on political influence]([link removed] revealed the disturbing level of access and influence the arms industry has on the UK government. This included BAE Systems having more meetings with ministers, and more with Prime Ministers, than any other private company. On average, between 2009-19, senior government officials and ministers met with their arms industry counterparts 1.64 times a day. This level of influence buys government complicity and makes a mockery of international law in order to safeguard arms dealers’ profits.

Underpinning this is the racism and colonialism that is still at the heart of UK foreign policy. It doesn’t matter if this means arming human rights abusing dictators and genocidal regimes - and it doesn’t matter if black and brown people are murdered with UK supplied weapons and parts - if it helps pursue a supposed ‘stability’ that promotes US/UK interests.

Thousands of campaigners across the UK have been vindicated, but it's too late for tens of thousands of Palestinian and Yemeni people killed with weapons and components exported from the UK.

Successive governments have manipulated evidence knowingly and willingly to facilitate war crimes and genocide. This has to stop. This has to be the wake up call to take action and demand a systemic change in our arms export licensing system.

Thank you for your continued support – keep campaigning against the arms trade!

Emily

Campaign Against Arms Trade

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Campaign Against Arms Trade

Unit 1.9, The Green House,
244 - 254 Cambridge Heath Road,
London
E2 9DA

Tel: 020 7281 0297

Web: [www.caat.org.uk]([link removed]

Email: [email protected]

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