WORLD WAR 3 will be fought ‘with British weapons’ as UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia soar
BRITISH arms sales to Saudi Arabia have soared since its military campaign against Yemen got underway, according to reports.
By SIMON OSBORNE
Express.co.uk
Thu, Nov 9, 2017
More than £4.6bn of British-made bombs and missiles were sold to the Saudis in the first two years of airstrikes which amounts to a an increase of almost 500 per cent.
Figures from the Department for International Trade (DIT) show in the two years leading up to the Yemen war, £33m of ML4 licences covering bombs, missiles and countermeasures were approved.
But in the two years since the start of Saudi bombing in March 2015, the figure increased by 457 per cent to £1.9bn, according to calculations by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).
Licences covering aircraft including Eurofighter jets have also risen by 70 per cent to £2.6bn in the same period.
CAAT co-director Tom Barns said the Government has been accelerating sales of “equipment being used to commit atrocities in Yemen” as the pace of Saudi-led air strikes increases.
He told the Independent: “Over the course of this year the situation in Yemen is only getting worse.
“At a time when the UK should at least be putting more consideration into what’s being sold they are giving more and more of these licences.”
A DIT spokesman said: “The UK Government takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world.
“We rigorously examine every application on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. We will not grant a licence if to do so would be inconsistent with these Criteria.
“The Government publishes regular statistics on the value of export licences, but these are not necessarily a measure of actual exports shipped as exporters must re-apply where a licence is unused. This results in double counting.”
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