‘It is morally reprehensible’: Five UK opposition parties call for Britain to drop Saudi weapons sales
Since start of war in Yemen, UK government
has committed £770 million in aid – compared to £4.7 billion worth of arms
licensed to Saudi Arabia.Since the Stockholm agreement on 13 December, it is estimated that eight children have been killed or injured in Yemen every day
Five opposition
parties published a letter on Monday condemning the UK’s continued arms trade
with the “murderous regime” of Saudi Arabia and
calling the government complicit in Yemen’s devastation. The letter, published in
full by The Independent, is signed by leaders of the Labour Party,
SNP, Liberal
Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party’s lone MP.
The UN special envoy for
Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is expected in London this week to discuss the
redeployment of forces and the opening up of access
to humanitarian supplies, especially in the rebel-held strategic port city
of Hodeidah. The city’s fragile
truce, negotiated in Stockholm in December, continues to hold, but any failure
to implement the deal could lead to even greater devastation in a country that
is experiencing what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
In their joint letter
to the foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, the opposition leaders, including Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable and the SNP leader in the
Commons Ian Blackford, said the government continues to profit from the
conflict through selling arms that it knows are being used to fuel it... read more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-uk-arms-deals-ban-westminster-opposition-snp-labour-lib-dems-plaid-cymru-greens-a8839156.htmlsee also