A former Foreign Office official has written about his reasons for quitting: what can be done about the ‘illegality and complicity with war crimes’ that this man saw?

Mark Smith was a lead officer on arms sales policy, I was responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law.

In August 2024, he resigned over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza after more than a year of internal lobbying and whistleblowing.

The Labour government subsequently suspended arms sales – but too late, as Israel continued to commit atrocities in Gaza while the UK watched and did nothing.

Mr Smith wrote:

My time at the FCDO exposed how ministers can manipulate legal frameworks to shield “friendly” nations from accountability. They stall, distort and obscure official processes to create a facade of legitimacy, while allowing the most egregious crimes against humanity to take place. Now, as the US – one of our closest allies – proposes the full-scale ethnic cleansing of Gaza, what will our response be?

What I witnessed was not just moral failure but conduct that I believe crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes.

The UK’s legal framework is clear: arms sales must cease if there is a “clear risk” that weapons could be used to commit serious violations of international law.

I witnessed senior officials under intense pressure from ministers to skew the legal assessment. Reports were repeatedly returned to me with instructions to “rebalance” the findings – to downplay evidence of civilian harm and emphasise diplomatic efforts, regardless of the facts. I was often summoned for verbal instructions – a tactic deliberately employed to avoid creating a written record that could be subject to freedom of information requests or legal scrutiny.

Significant edits were made to my reports, shifting the focus away from credible evidence of war crimes to paint a misleading picture of “progress” by foreign governments.

Israel’s repeated bombardments of Gaza have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed vital infrastructure, actions that are clearly incompatible with international law. Yet the UK government continued to justify arms sales to Israel [and] no one was willing to address the fundamental question: how could continued arms sales to Israel possibly be legal?

Officials are bullied into silence. Processes are manipulated to produce politically convenient outcomes. Whistleblowers are stonewalled, isolated and ignored. And all the while, the UK government continues to arm regimes that commit atrocities, hiding behind legal loopholes and public relations spin.

I followed every internal procedure available to me to raise my concerns. I engaged the whistleblowing team, wrote to senior officials and even contacted the foreign secretary, David Lammy [pictured], directly. At every turn, I was met with delays, obfuscation and outright refusal to engage. It became clear that the system is not designed to hold itself accountable – it is designed to protect itself at all costs.

The UK’s complicity in war crimes cannot continue. We must demand transparency and accountability in our arms export policies. Ministers must be held to the same legal and ethical standards that they claim to uphold. Civil servants must be empowered to provide impartial advice without fear of political interference, and whistleblowers must be protected, not punished, for speaking the truth.

I call on my former colleagues – those who still believe in the values of integrity and justice – to refuse to be complicit. Do not rubber-stamp reports that whitewash crimes against humanity. This is not self-defence – it is collective punishment. It is genocide. The time for silence is over. Do not allow ministers to trade human lives for political expediency. The time for accountability is now.

You’ll notice only one person is directly named and accused of participation in the practices Mr Smith describes – current Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

I await with impatience Mr Lammy’s explanation of his behaviour and that of his department.

Source: I saw illegality and complicity with war crimes. That’s why I quit the UK Foreign Office | Mark Smith | The Guardian

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