CAAT: NEW ACTION: UK arms export licensing - broken or ineffective by design?

Dear friends,

This week’s announcement of a “double lock” under which the UK will refuse all licence applications for arms to Israel that “materially contribute to the occupation” is a testament to the mass movement against the UK arming Israel’s genocide of Gaza. However, it falls short of a complete, two-way arms embargo. Take action now and email your MP to call for a full arms embargo, and advocate for change to the systemic injustices of the UK’s current export licensing system.

It remains to be seen which licences will be covered by the “double lock”, and crucially, the government has continued to defend the indefensible F-35 “carve-out”. It also fails to address broader, structural issues with the UK export licensing system. If the UK’s export licensing system was following its stated criteria, we would not be met with such partial half-measures in the first place.

Although Burnham’s government may be taking stronger action against some arms to Israel now, during Israel’s genocide of Gaza, UK-produced weapon components have contributed to the killing of over 73 000 Palestinians. 

Burnham’s government continues to evade accountability regarding UK weapon exports to the UAE, widely acknowledged as arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, where over 150 000 have been killed.

Weapons exported from the UK to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s war on Yemen played a role in the deaths of over 377 000 Yemeni people. How has the UK’s arms export licensing system allowed for these mass atrocities? 

When challenged on this, our government has defended these exports, repeatedly stating that the UK has “one of the most robust export-licensing systems in the world”. In response, many have pointed to how dysfunctional and cynical the UK’s export licensing system is.

The question is over the extent to which the system is simply broken, or whether it deliberately functions in a way so as to allow the government to disregard its own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (SELC), and to forge loopholes when public pressure forces the government to appear as though it is following them.

On paper, the UK’s SELC appear solid. They make clear the need for the government to refuse export licences to a UK weapons company based on factors such as its potential impact on peace, security, human rights, and crucially, where there is a “clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation” of the UK’s International Humanitarian Law (IHL) obligations.

In reality, there are a myriad of ways that the UK’s export licensing system seemingly allows for weapons companies to avoid these SELC criteria. They allow huge scope for the government to interpret them in ways that suit its goal of maintaining arms exports, and even for the government to discard the criteria completely when it is politically convenient to do so.

The UK’s export licensing system functions to allow the continued export of military goods to countries allied with Britain’s geopolitical interests, aligned largely with those of the United States, seemingly with little regard for the level of death and destruction those exports facilitate.

Politically-motivated delay and inaction within the SELC are leading to more civilian deaths and human rights violations. Delays on suspending export licences and inaction on accountability measures within the SELC are wreaking havoc upon the world. Take action now and email your MP to demand immediate change to this appalling regime.

CAAT could not do this work without your support, and as always we thank you for your committed efforts – whether you can join us in the streets, share our posts on social media, amplify our petitions, organise events with CAAT, lobby your MP and council or protest at arms companies directly. You can find the nearest company arming Israel to you here. Your donations, if you are in a financial position to be able to consider this, are hugely appreciated as well.

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Thank you for your continued support in resisting the deadly arms trade,

Zoe and everyone at Campaign Against Arms Trade