We need to talk about the British arms industry, and its exports
12:19 pm - July 19th 2013
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by James Elliott
Wednesday’s Independent broke the ‘arms-for-dictators‘ splash, revealing the embarrassing story of our government approving arms sales to 25 out of 27 of the countries on its human rights blacklist.
Sri Lanka, China, Belarus and Zimbabwe received weapons, along with Russia and the West’s arch-nemesis in the Middle East, Iran. Most of the £12bn cache was sold to Israel, although it was almost entirely cryptography and software.
Whilst news, this story isn’t new. Recently I wrote about David Cameron’s propensity to jet off with arms dealers, seemingly selecting his destinations based on who had the worst human rights records. Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia are just two dictatorships he has helped arm, whilst demonstrators in the Arab Spring where repressed with British tear gas,and demolition charges sold to Bahrain and Egypt.
Labour have nothing to be smug about on arms and human rights. After Thatcher and Major had armed the genocidal General Suharto, New Labour continued being his major weapons supplier. Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, potentially the next target of that awful phrase ‘humanitarian intervention’, was invited to an arms fair, whilst David Miliband had to confess British weapons were used on Palestinians in the 2008-9 Gaza massacre.
Douglas Alexander last year wrote in The Guardian that Labour would get tough on arms exports, but given he didn’t even mention Israel, and since recently gave a hawkish speech for the Labour Friends of Israel, there is nothing to suggest he won’t repeat David Miliband’s error.
The terrible excesses of the arms trade will continue until the power to decide who does and does not get British arms is taken out of the hands of politicians, who are liable to lobbying and corporate manipulation, as the Sherard Cowper-Coles and BAE affair exemplified so well.
We need some kind of extra-parliamentary judicial body, either the UK Supreme Court or a new human rights and humanitarian law court, to scrutinise the arms industry. Where weapons are sold with the foreknowledge that they will be used for crimes, which at the moment means business as usual for the arms trade, judges, not politicians, should adjudicate.
We should treat corporate complicity in international law violations, war crimes and human rights abuses for what it really is: criminal behaviour.
Politicians who approve the licenses should be drawn in too. I doubt we would see Cameron flying around the Middle East selling weapons to dictators if he knew he would face a judge’s wrath, or even an arrest warrant, when he got back.
This policy requires a prime minister of some vision and certainly a little courage, but their legacy could be the first genuinely progressive foreign policy of this once imperial nation.
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James Elliott writes for the Huffington Post. You can read his blog at jfgelliott.com and follow him on Twitter @JFG_Elliott
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Reader comments
Of course, it doesn’t help that the Conservative Party’s base (and most popular newspapers) are overwhelmingly actively hostile to the entire concept of Human Rights, especially when applied to foreigners.
Where weapons are sold with the foreknowledge that they will be used for crimes
They’re weapons. What else are they going to be used for? Who could we possibly sell them to with a credible guarantee that they would only be used in accordance with international law?
There’s no money in selling weapons to countries who aren’t going to use them. Either you ban their export entirely, or you accept that at least some of the weapons you sell will be used for the killing of people you wouldn’t personally have killed.
The problem is not quite so easily resolved, what you actually have is a dilemma, in that by selling arms to dictators you are making money for yourself while they then go on to use those weapons for things you don’t agree with, and by NOT selling arms to them, someone else IS and making the money instead of you, and the dictator is still going to go on to using those weapons for things you don’t agree with.
So, money for the nation’s coffers, or poorer but with intact principles?
If you actually want to stop dictators getting their hands on weapons, you need to start talking about the global arms industry, not just the British subsection of it.
@3. Cylux: “So, money for the nation’s coffers, or poorer but with intact principles?”
The statement presumes that arms exports are profitable to the nation (or offset the cost of UK/EU/NATO provision). Given that UK government puts money up front for all major UK armament designs and projects are lengthy, the accountancy is very complex. And companies like BAe Systems are not noted for transparency.
As a starting point, how about determining whether the high tech arms business benefits the nation rather than particular firms. At least be honest to ourselves about the cost of procurement and the potential profit from exports. When we understand that, we’d be better prepared to consider the moral dilemma.
1
“Of course, it doesn’t help that the Conservative Party’s base (and most popular newspapers) are overwhelmingly actively hostile to the entire concept of Human Rights, especially when applied to foreigners.”
“To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life.” Cecil Rhodes
“Nearly a third of foreigners wanting to make Britain their home failed their citizenship test in 2009, figures show.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8707152.stm
So there.
Recall the endorsement of that ever popular anthem Jerusalem: And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green . . .
If only that nice Mr Blair came back we could have more of those exciting wars to boost the sales of Britain’s arms industry. Until fairly recently, BAE Systems, the armament manufacturers, was Britain’s largest manufacturing business. It’s a sign of the times that Tata Manufacturing is now the largest.
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