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Up in Arms- UK/Saudi Arms Deals


Over the past year, the UK has near doubled the sale of arms to countries on the list of human rights abusers.
According to figures published by pressure group Campaign Against Arms Trade, arms deal licenses worth 1.5 billion pounds were approved by Whitehall in 2017.
That is a huge increase from the 820 million pound deals passed just a year earlier.
The UK has secured arms deals with 18 of the 31 countries designated as human rights abusers on the recently published annual human rights report.
The figures include a deal worth 1.13 billion pound to Saudi Arabia.
This is a nation currently embroiled in a deadly conflict with Yemen, which, over the past 3 years, has left thousands of Yemeni civilians dead, and millions more injured.
UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that the British government must be held complicit to these deaths.
The UK government is actively arming and supporting regimes that they themselves believe to be guilty of human rights abuses- with little oversight as to how these arms are being used.
But what is the reason for such a huge increase in arms deals with non-European nations? Could it be symptomatic of the decision to leave the EU bloc?
According to the pressure group Campaign against Arms Trade, the rush to find post-Brexit trade deals has led to an increased focus on repressive regimes as a market for arms.
Since the vote, UK Prime Minister Theresa May has secured a 1000 million pound deal with the Turkish government, in the export of fighter jets.
Recognized by the UK as human rights abusers, Turkey, under their President Erdogan, has overseen a failed coup attempt that led to a major crackdown on dissent.
It included the purge of over a hundred thousand workers from state jobs, as well as the arrest of thousands of people, including hundreds of journalists.
But it’s not just the government that has bolstered arms sales to questionable regimes, since the Brexit vote.
The ADS, a non-governmental arms trade body, has also been looking outwards of the European market.
An ADS spokesperson told Bloomberg, that: ‘while Europe continues to be important, there’s now a bigger incentive to develop longer-term relationships’.
Brexit has incentivized the export of military equipment to a further field than just Europe.
This could have devastating consequences on the EU as a whole.
Despite its formation as a Franco-German initiative to prioritize peace on the continent- in recent years the EU has been rapidly militarizing.
The UK has been something of a blocker to a full militarization of the EU, believing instead that military matters should be a concern of individual states.
Brexit, therefore, could help EU governments (such as Germany and France) to push for greater military collaboration within the bloc.
This in itself would prove a tempting opportunity for arms dealers- both in the UK and elsewhere.


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