Once we were a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ – now Michael Fallon is adding ‘warmongering’ to the accusation
Laughing at the Tory: Former shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry once made a fool of current defence secretary Michael Fallon on Andrew Marr’s TV show.
This is Conservative policy on the international stage: Never mind human lives, never mind international law – we’ll sell anything, to anyone, and damn the consequences.
That’s the reason Michael Fallon doesn’t want any inconvenient facts raised in Parliament (or, one is to suppose, the media) about the uses to which UK-built weapons are being put by Saudi Arabia.
He doesn’t want you to know that British jet fighters are being used to kill innocent citizens of Yemen because the bad publicity it would create for the customer – Saudi Arabia – would create what This Writer believes is termed “consumer resistance”, and they’ll cancel any deal.
Good.
I know there would be an immediate effect on the UK’s balance of trade deficit, and on the future of contractor BAe Systems, if this multi-billion-pound trade deal were to be cancelled but the effect on our international reputation is even more chilling.
BAe is already in trouble and it would be better if the company re-tooled itself to pursue peaceful commercial enterprises instead of weapon-building, as This Site has already reported.
And the UK would be in a better position to market such products across the world if ministers like Mr Fallon weren’t intent on staining our reputation with concerns that we are breaking international law to make a fast buck.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has told MPs to stop criticising Saudi Arabia so we can sell them more weapons.
He told MPs criticism of the regime’s brutal bombardment of Yemen is “unhelpful” while Britain is trying to finalise a deal with BAE Systems to sell the Kingdom a further batch of Eurofighter jets.
Both the UN and Human Rights Watch have said the intervention is in breach of international law.
[Mr Fallon] told the Defence Select Committee: “We’ve been working extremely hard on the batch two deal. I’ve travelled to Saudi Arabia back in September and discussed progress on the deal with my opposite number, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – and we continued to press for a signature or at least a statement of intent as we’ve done with Qatar.“I have to repeat sadly, to this committee, that obviously other criticism of Saudi Arabia, in this Parliament, is not helpful and …I’ll leave it there, but we need to do everything possible to encourage Saudi Arabia towards batch two. I believe they will commit to batch two and we need to work away on the timing.”
Labour’s Emily Thornberry has voiced the concerns we should all feel:
“These comments are extremely concerning. The sale of arms should never be prioritised over human rights, the Rule of Law and the lives of innocent children in Yemen.”
All quotes from: Michael Fallon tells MPs to stop criticising Saudi Arabia so we can sell them more weapons
But these are falling on deaf ears. Warmonger Fallon once tried to claim that the UK had a moral responsibility to bomb people in the Middle East and wants the UK to become the world’s biggest armaments marketplace after Brexit.
Not only are the Conservatives determined to destroy the UK’s economy – they are ruining our good name abroad so that it will be even harder to claw our way out of their mess after they are removed from office.
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Tories seem to love a war. I believe it enables them to wave nationalistic flags and to make the claim that they are the patriotic party.
Yet another Tory buffoon not in touch with reality. Or even worse, is in touch with reality and couldn’t care less.
The murky world of armaments will always raise the ire of people all over the world, but there is more to it than just those clear aspects like the Saudis arming ISIS. There would need to be an international moratorium on supplying arms which needs and agreement in the UN, the question has to be asked why has this not been raised there, the simple answer is that Saudi is seen as the best bet to be able to bring stability to the area, whether there is truth or evidence to support that is debatable, but just as we allied with the USSR in WW2 and supplied arms and other necessities to them via the convoys sometimes you have to bite the bullet and work with people you do not agree with and who have dreadful human rights backgrounds.