“Labour has run out of excuses for arms sales to Israel.”
By Tayab Ali
Last month, the UK Government stood before the High Court, defending its continued licensing of arms sales to Israel, in a Judicial Review brought by Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). The organisation I founded, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), is proud to have supported this case from its inception in October 2023
Under both UK and international law, arms exports must be suspended where there is a clear risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international law. And yet the UK Government has spun a carousel of contradictory defences: that there is no such risk; that UK-made weapons are not the ones used; or even that there may be a risk, but nothing can be done. These excuses shift with political convenience and none withstand scrutiny.
A ruling is not expected for a number of weeks. It cannot be guaranteed that the claimants will get the relief that they are seeking. But what has become clear, from that case, and from the government’s statements in public and in Parliament is that their excuses are running thin.
While a judgment is pending, the case has already laid bare the government’s incoherence. Their explanations for arming Israel have unravelled in court and collapsed in public.
In June, the position became even more indefensible. The Ministry of Defence admitted that UK forces are currently training members of the Israeli military on British soil. This is not merely shameful, it could make the UK complicit under Article 25 of the Rome Statute, for aiding and abetting war crimes.
It is, of course, welcome that Labour abandoned the previous government’s policy of wilful obstruction, allegedly covering up legal advice that Israel was violating international law in Gaza and making potentially unlawful threats from then Foreign Secretary David Cameron to withdraw the UK from the ICC if arrest warrants were sought against Netanyahu and Gallant.
But abandoning the previous governments position is not the same as taking action. In September, this government formally acknowledged the “clear risks” that Israel is violating international law. Yet even after that admission they have failed to implement the obvious next step: implementing a full arms embargo on Israel. Incredibly, in the months after making this assessment, the UK increased the value of export licenses granted to Israel more than ten-fold.
The UK continues to arm a government that is accused of genocide. It does so while pretending that the legal treaties it helped create including the Geneva Conventions, the Arms Trade Treaty and the Rome Statute, are somehow optional. The truth is more dangerous: this government does not believe international law applies to Israel.
In the Royal Courts of Justice, the government claimed that the Genocide Convention has no sway because it was never incorporated into UK statute. Even if it did, the government claims that there’s “no serious risk of genocide” and there’s a “a tenable view that no genocide has occurred or is occurring”.
The Convention, which is the cornerstone of the post-WWII international order, was casually dismissed by government lawyers as “touchy feely”.
However, some treaties have been incorporated into UK law. One of them is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, under which Netanyahu is now wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war, directing attacks against a civilian population, murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Yet the government wants to purposefully look the other way. It claims in court submissions that “no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children” and suggested that Israel is “making efforts to limit incidental harm to civilians”. I have seen ample evidence suggesting this position is simply not true.
The government’s position defies logic. After nearly two years of continuous bombardment, thousands of children dead, and entire neighbourhoods levelled, the UK still claims it cannot assess legality because Israel won’t reveal the intended targets of its airstrikes. This is not a legal defence.
Then there is the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet where 15% of all components are built in the UK. It is instrumental in the bombardment of Gaza, and has been directly linked with the bombing of humanitarian zones.
However, the UK stance on this is that it is impossible to determine where our manufactured parts end up– and that any attempt to restrict them would in the best traditions of double speak ‘undermine international peace and security’. So strong is the government’s adherence to its position, that it readily admits: there are no legal, moral, or humanitarian grounds whatsoever which would lead them to change their position and restrict F-35 parts sales to Israel. Nothing – not genocide, not starvation, not the deliberate targeting of civilians would be enough to stop the flow of weapons
But even if we were to put morality aside for a moment, the politics are bewildering. A significant majority of the British public support a ban on arms to Israel – 55% including 74% of Labour voters.
In clinging to such a toxic policy, they are losing the faith of British people. Why?
In private, they admit the truth: restricting arms would, in their words, “undermine US confidence in the UK.”
But is preserving “US confidence” worth the cost of destroying Britain’s international credibility and Labour’s moral standing? Is it worth the growing anger among voters, the dismay on Labour’s own benches, the embarrassment in court?
In Parliament, Labour Ministers respond to questions on arms sales to Israel with visible exasperation. They seem to believe, against all odds, that the public and their fellow parliamentarians are the ones in the wrong: that it is truly the case that the UK has done “all we can” to bring the war on Gaza to an end, and that questions over the UK’s arms exports for Israel are misguided – or “clickbait”.
But the questions are not going away, because the facts are not going away. The government has a choice. It can suspend arms sales to Israel, as it should have done long ago. Or it can continue to destroy the UK’s reputation and the rules-based system by attempting to defend the indefensible.
Either way, it can no longer expect silence. Because it has run out of excuses.
- Tayab Ali is a Partner at Bindmans LLP and Director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), an independent organisation of lawyers, academics and politicians that work to promote and support Palestinian rights. ICJP is supporting Al-Haq and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) with their legal challenge to the UK government over arms supplies to Israel.
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