UK pressured to follow US in ending arms sales to Saudi

Saudi air strikes on Yemen have destroyed civilian infrastructure, including a wedding hall in Sanaa

Credit: AP

The Government is facing growing pressure to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the United States announced it was ending support for the kingdom’s devastating war in Yemen, with one MP calling on Boris Johnson to “show leadership”.

US President Joe Biden said Thursday he would end all weapons sales and support for its ally Saudi Arabia’s military operations in Yemen, which he said “has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

If the US decision is fully implemented, it could leave the UK as one of the main weapons suppliers to the kingdom alongside Canada, after Italy ended sales last week. 

Conservative MP and Defence Select Committee Chair Tobias Ellwood called on the UK to show leadership by committing troops to a peacekeeping mission in Yemen and ending support to the Saudi-led coalition.

“A fresh strategy to resolve the seven year civil war is well overdue,” he wrote on Twitter.

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy called the Government’s support for Saudi’s war in Yemen “morally wrong”, adding that it “increasingly leaves Britain isolated on the world stage”.

“President Biden’s decision to end US support for operations in Yemen shows just how far global opinion has shifted and leaves the UK worryingly out of step with our allies,” she said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia launched a military coalition to support Yemen’s government in 2015 after Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa. The campaign quickly became bogged down and the ongoing fighting has brought the country to the brink of famine, creating what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

UN experts have concluded that Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign – which has used British cluster munitions – violated international humanitarian law, following reports of air strikes targeting civilian infrastructure, weddings and funerals.

In 2018, UN experts urged the UK to stop supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia to avoid complicity in potential war crimes. A legal challenge by campaigners the following year led the government to suspend sales.

But the Government announced last July that sales would resume, after a review found “isolated incidents” where Saudi air strikes had breached international humanitarian law but no “pattern” of violations.

The Ministry of Defence later acknowledged it had logged 535 Saudi air strikes which may have violated international law.

According to Government export licencing data, since Saudi began bombing in March 2015, the UK has licensed around £5.3 billion worth of arms to the kingdom. Details on the latest weapons contracts to Saudi Arabia are scheduled to be released on Tuesday, when the Department for International Trade publishes licensing statistics from July to September.

“Oxfam is deeply concerned that the figures licencing news arms sales to Saudi Arabia are likely to show hundreds of millions of pounds of weaponry being exported to be used in Yemen,” said the British charity’s head of policy Pauline Checuti.  “The UK government is now on the wrong side of both our courts and the US government – our prime minister should act now to ensure he is not on the wrong side of history.” 

She added: “It is time for the UK government to follow suit and permanently end all sales of arms that are likely to be used against civilians.”

The International Rescue Committee also renewed calls to end British arms sales to Saudi Arabia. 

“This is a test for ‘Global Britain’ – a vital opportunity for the UK to work closely with the new Biden administration to address years of gridlock in the UN and to bring Yemen a step closer to lasting peace,” said IRC UK Executive Director Melanie Ward

Italy permanently ended arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia last week, following an 18-month temporary suspension, blocking the sale of around 12,700 missiles to Saudi, part of a contract signed in 2016 worth nearly £350m.

“This is an act that we considered necessary, a clear message of peace coming from our country. For us, the respect of human rights is an unbreakable commitment,” Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said in a statement.