Campaigners will get in the way of more arms deals at next month's protests against the DSEI arms fair. Join in, and share our film. |
Dear friends,
I wanted to share the latest developments since our landmark victory this Summer – when the Court of Appeal found that the Government acted unlawfully in licensing arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
The bad news first: as we feared, our fight must go on. The Government doesn’t want to accept the verdict and it has been granted permission to take the case to the Supreme Court.
The good news is that the Government's request for 'a stay', which would have allowed it to carry on with business as usual until any Appeal is heard, was denied.
Previous decisions on arms sales must still be retaken, ‘on a lawful basis’. Until this is done, it must also stop issuing new arms exports licences to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners for use in Yemen.
This is huge! With 57 applications for export licences under consideration at the time of the ruling, it is likely that many hundreds of millions of pounds of arms sales remain on hold as a result of our action together - thank you.
This week, we exposed how the UK Government has licensed more than £6.3 of weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in the first four years of the Yemen conflict. CAAT believes that if the government took its decisions properly, as the Court has ordered, then these licences would not have been granted.
The problem is that the Government doesn't actually want to stop selling arms. Government Ministers have already said that "changing the process as set out by the Court does not necessarily mean any of the decisions would be different." We're going to need to scrutinise its next steps very closely.
Luckily, you’re on the case! Thanks to everyone who has written to their MPs, and shared responses. If you want to follow up with your MP further, we’ve been compiling answers to some of the most Frequently Asked Questions: caat.org.uk/saudi-faqs
In the meantime, the government’s priorities are laid bare: its priority is more arms sales. In less than three weeks it will be welcoming military delegations from Saudi Arabia, and its coalition partners bombing Yemen, to the DSEI arms fair in London.
Thousands of us will be resisting the arms fair in hundreds of ways. Can you help by spreading the word?
Please watch and share our new film and help us Stop Arming Saudi and Stop the Arms Fair. You can find it on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Thank you!
 |
Sarah
Campaign Against Arms Trade