War...what is it good for? Making us a ton of money.

Special Report

From 2010 to 2015, Britain sold £7.9bn worth of arms (weapons) to 22 certain nations around the globe (among others).

Why are these 22 nations so important?

Because they make up 73% of the Government's ‘Human Rights Priority Countries’ - the list of regimes that oppress freedom and human rights (1).

The Government has decided to sell massive quantities of weaponry to nations like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, infamous for their oppression and crackdown on free speech, despite clear signals that they are using this equipment for immoral means - it's estimated that Turkey has 152 journalists in prison, with more being constantly assaulted.(2)

This is wrong. It is morally reprehensible, and a total violation of what the United Kingdom is meant to stand for: tolerance, respect, and protection of personal freedom. Yet the government insists that '[it] takes its arms export control responsibilities very seriously', and the foreign office website claims that 'British diplomats put human rights at the heart of everything they do...to promote safer, more inclusive, prosperous societies'.(3)

This is hard to believe, when Saudi Arabia - a main beneficiary - is using UK-made missiles and bombs to destroy civilian infrastructure in Yemen, possibly utilising the illegal ‘cluster bomb’*, as well as receiving advisory support and military training. They revived 83% of the UK's arms exports in 2015.


While Yemen slides into famine and disaster (4) and UN aid convoys are blocked by both sides, UK-manufactured planes are being used to destroy all opposition on the ground with Saudi Arabia’s usual regard for human life. (5)



Yemeni aid workers rescue wounded from Saudi-made rubble

Conversely, the UK also sells to Israel (5), supplying them with drone parts, and targeting equipment. This, combined with the vague political support that arms sales

come with, suggests that the Government is backing both long-term enemies Saudi Arabia and Israel, which is likely to cause chaos and confusion among governments if they ever come to a head in the future.

The UK refused export licenses to Egypt in 2015 for small-arm training ammunition and machine gun components, then promptly approved the sale of much heavier armaments such as snipers and assault rifles - complete with live ammunition. This is in a country where the police and the armed forces can detain and arrest a suspect with little reason, and have effectively ended the work of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International.(6)

The countries on the Human Rights Watch-list -
two-thirds of them buy weapons from the UK (credit to BBC Newsbeat)

As well as this, the Government (or UK-based firms) have in the past supplied machine-guns to Bahrain, tanks to Indonesia and jets to India. A company called ‘Matrix Churchill’ tried to supply parts capable of making a ‘super-gun’ to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s. They breached an international arms embargo(*) and tried to disguise the parts as oil pipeline units. (7)

This blatant disregard of humanity - the gun could have targeted Israel, as well as help Hussein persecute minorities and dissidents in Iraq - is rather worrying, suggesting that profit is all that matters in an industry where human life is so central, and that the UK has abandoned its 'champion of human rights' title, preferring 'champion of human rights, when they don't conflict with our interests'.

*A cluster bomb is a projectile that releases multiple bombs on impact, spreading the devastation over a wider area. Hard to aim and control, it often causes large civilian casualties, and is outlawed by 108 countries, including the UK.

(*) An arms embargo is when a group of countries - often encouraged by the UN or the EU - refuse to sell weapons to certain countries because of crimes they've committed.