The Green Party of England and Wales and the Scottish Greens have
condemned UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia ahead of the G20 leaders’
summit hosted by Riyadh this weekend.
, co-leader
of the Green Party of England and Wales, said:
“The UK government is trying to sell itself as ‘Global Britain’,
yet the best it seems to be able to come up with is selling arms
to human rights abusers.
“It is a stain on our national conscience that rather than
dedicating our resources to solving the world’s biggest crises,
this government prefers to brag about developing and selling
weapons that are used to harm thousands of innocent civilians.
“It is time the UK government stopped its dirty deals with
potential war criminals and showed some true leadership on the
world stage by properly addressing climate change and the global
pandemic.”
Earlier this year the UK government announced it was to resume
selling arms to Saudi Arabia, despite these exports having been
found to be illegal because they were used to commit war crimes
in Yemen. [1]
Figures suggest the UK has licensed $5.4 billion of arms sales to
Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2020 - more than four times the
amount of aid it has given to Yemen in the same period.[2]
Following the UK’s announcement of a further £16.5bn in defence
spending yesterday [Thursday 19 November], the Greens warned the
move will fail to address the country’s biggest security threats
and should instead be spent on tackling the climate, health and
economic emergencies we are currently facing. [3]
, Scottish Greens
international affairs spokesperson, said:
“Compared to the meagre £4bn spent on a speculative climate wish
list, the whopping £16.5bn is throwing at defence spending is absolutely
ridiculous in itself, never mind the fact he announced it on the
eve on a G20 summit hosted by a regime that uses British-made
bombs to kill children.
“This spending imbalance needs to be redressed to tackle the real
threat to our survival, the climate emergency. Instead of
throwing more money at weapons and arms dealers, why not create
quality manufacturing jobs in the industries which actually
benefit our country and the world, like the domestic supply chain
for the wind farms that will be going up at a rapid rate off our
coasts?”
ENDS
Notes
1
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-arms-sell-saudi-arabia-military-exports-a9605636.html
2
https://oxfamapps.org/media/press_release/g20-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-worth-three-times-aid-to-yemen-since-2015/
3
https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2020/11/19/greens-warn-defence-budget-increase-fails-to-address-biggest-threats-to-our-security/
