Dear friend,

With the new majority government taking office, it’s more important than ever that we can hold it to
account.

As MPs settle into the new Parliament, can you support our call
for a new committee to strengthen the ability of Parliament to
scrutinise the UK government on the arms trade?

Email your MP today
( [link removed] )

The government is supposed to regulate the sale of arms from the
UK. Weapons can’t be exported without a licence from the UK
government, and these should only be granted in accordance with
strict rules. But the government’s focus has not been on limiting
arms sales. In fact, it actively works to secure more deals.

The UK supplies arms to more than 100 countries worldwide. This
has included billions of pounds of arms sales to the Saudi-led
coalition bombing Yemen, despite overwhelming evidence of serious
violations of international humanitarian law.

It has supplied tear gas to Hong Kong and components for Israel’s
weapons used in the Occupied Palestinian territories. It is
courting repressive leaders such as Erdoğan in Turkey, Dutertes
in the Philippines and Bolsonaro in Brazil.

MPs can play a vital role in investigating and challenging these
sales, but in the last parliament they didn’t have adequate
resources to hold the government to account. Last year they even
struggled to get enough representation at meetings to be able to
make official decisions. Ministers and arms companies refused to
appear and answer their questions.

We can change this. MPs involved at the time recommended that
there needed to be a full Select Committee to consider arms
exports. Select Committees in the new Parliament are still
to be decided so with a push now, we can ensure that the scrutiny of arms exports is finally
given the resources it deserves.

MPs are already signing a parliamentary petition on the subject.
Please use our template to write today
and ask your MP to add their support too.
( [link removed] )

Thank you for your action.

Campaign Against Arms Trade ( [link removed] )

Sarah

Campaign Against Arms Trade

P.S. Whatever your MP thinks about the arms trade, we hope they
can support proper democratic scrutiny of government. You can
email them in just two minutes here: caat.org.uk/arms-controls
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