Declassified UK: Should David Lammy resign over this?
Posted: 12th May 2025
Should David Lammy resign over this?
This week, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International, and Workers for a Free Palestine released a major new report exposing the scale of UK arms exports to Israel.
The report, which focusses on the period October 2023 to March 2025, uses data from the Israel Tax Authority (ITA) to investigate how Britain has sent military goods and munitions of war to Israel amid the Gaza genocide.
The data reveals how “14 shipments of military items were made from the UK to Israel since October 2023”, with at least 11 of those shipments sent by air to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
Remarkably, most of the shipments occurred after the UK government’s partial suspension of arms export licences to Israel in September 2024.
That month, UK foreign secretary David Lammy told parliament that “around 30” arms licences had been revoked for “components which go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones” and “items which facilitate ground targeting”.
Since then, the Labour government has repeatedly insisted that military items which could be used by Israeli forces for offensive operations in Gaza are no longer being sent to Israel.
Yet according to the new report, “the UK has sent 8,630 separate munitions [to Israel] since the suspensions took effect” which were all in the category of “Bombs, Grenades, Torpedoes, Mines, Missiles and Similar Munitions of War and Parts Thereof”.
Britain has also exported items classified as “Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, motorised, whether or not fitted with weapons, and parts of such vehicles”, with many of those shipments occurring after Labour’s arms restrictions.
Zarah Sultana MP said: “This explosive report shows the government has been lying to us about the arms it is supplying to Israel while it wages genocide in Gaza”.
“The government has shrouded its arms supplies to Israel in secrecy. They must finally come clean in response to this extremely concerning evidence and halt all British arms exports to Israel”, John McDonnell MP added.
The report has also led to calls for Lammy to resign. Indeed, it looks increasingly clear that the UK foreign secretary has misled parliament and the public about the true scale of Britain’s military support to Israel.
However, the previous Conservative government is also heavily implicated. It was found that 150,000 bullets were shipped from Britain to Israel in October 2023, as Israeli officials were making their genocidal plans clear.
The report comes just one week before a major legal case at the High Court, in which Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) are due to challenge the government over arms exports to Israel.