How this country profits from chaos
The £7bn blood money trade – and the repressive nations buying our arms
THE Government’s billion pound foreign arms shame is today laid bare – with Saudi Arabia revealed as our No1 customer.
The Saudi regime has one of the worst human rights records in the world.
Yet that hasn’t stopped UK officials approving exports of weapons and similar goods worth more than £10billion to the country over the past decade.
The worrying figures have been uncovered by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which analysed the latest government data.
Companies in Britain have to get a licence from The Export Control Joint Unit to sell arms, hardware and equipment that could have military uses abroad.
And over the past 10 years – in what conspiracy theorists claim is a sign of a shadowy Deep State at work, manipulating wars for financial gains –they have given the green light to export licences worth an average of £7billion a year. They have also approved exports worth almost £9billion to the US and £7.3billion to the United Arab Emirates. China, France, Taiwan, Oman, South Korea, Malaysia and Iran complete the top 10: All these countries – with the exception of Malaysia – were rated “Not Free” by Freedom House in its latest survey of freedom around the world. Human rights campaigners have long highlighted concerns with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, China, Oman, Malaysia and Iran. Saudi Arabia has been involved in fighting in the civil war in neighbouring Yemen since 2015 – an intervention the UN and Human Rights Watch have both said is in breach of international law. CAAT launched a judicial review into the Government’s permission of exports to Saudi Arabia in 2016. It argued that the exports should be stopped because they violated its own code aimed at preventing the risk of equipment being used to violate humanitarian law. CAAT lost the case but is appealing against the decision.
SHADY
For many people, it is these sorts of deals which suggest the so-called Deep State has more power and influence than most of us realise.
Matthew Parkhill has written and created a new TV series called Deep State, an espionage thriller which will be shown on FOX at 9pm on April 5. He believes certain people and organisations are employing shady tactics to maintain these interests. “It’s about agencies being able to spy on you if they feel they need to protecting established interests,” says Matthew. “You can see it in how Obama wanted to limit certain military activity and found he couldn’t. How in control is a president? More recently, with the Russian ex-double agent, you can see a Deep State.
“The show’s not about the good guys and the bad guys, I think this is something that all governments are involved with in some way. We talk about the national security interest, but who really decides what’s in the national interest? I know that I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I promise you I’m not. I think this is just the way the world works. People have vested interests.”