Continued UK arms sales to Israel have sparked bitter internal conflict within the Conservative Party, as pressure mounts on Rishi Sunak to halt arms exports given the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip .
Retired Tory MP Nicholas Soames says Britain should send a message about Israel’s actions, as international outrage continues after an Israeli drone strike kills seven aid workers in the Gaza Strip. , has become the latest in a string of Conservative figures to call for Britain to be suspended. sales of weapons.
A bitter row erupted over Israel’s actions, with Downing Street and Foreign Secretary David Cameron largely silent, with former minister Alan Duncan slamming what he called pro-Israel “extremists” in the Conservative Party. , urging the party to investigate his actions. comment.
Keir Starmer also called for a halt to arms sales after London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labor MP Margaret Beckett, who served as foreign secretary under Tory Blair, called on the government to consider immediate action. Facing pressure to support.
Mr Soames, a former minister who spent 36 years in the House of Commons before being appointed to the peerage, said that following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, three of whom were British, the UK had refused to supply arms to Israel. said it needed to stop.
He told the Guardian: Israel has the right to attack Hamas, there is no question about that. ”
Mr Soames said Britain’s contribution to Israel’s arsenal would be “minor, probably parts more than anything else”, adding: “I think what’s important is the message.”
Mr Soames has joined his Conservative colleague Hugo Swire and three Conservative MPs (David Jones, Paul Bristow and Frick Drummond) in calling for an end to arms sales.
A fourth Conservative MP, Mark Logan, on Thursday called for a review of Britain’s arms exports to Israel. “We need to seriously re-evaluate arms material/arms exports to Israel in light of what has happened,” he said in a post on X.
By contrast, former Interior Minister Suela Braverman insisted on Thursday that Israel had “absolutely not violated” international law.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This proposal in itself is absurd and, frankly, Israel is going far beyond the requirements necessary to ensure that civilian casualties are limited in order to ensure that aid reaches the Gaza Strip.” It’s an insult to stripping and distributing. ”
Braverman was one of a series of Conservatives subsequently targeted by Duncan. The former MP, who served as foreign minister and aid minister before resigning in 2019, said Braverman, as well as security minister Tom Tugendhat and fellow former cabinet minister Eric Pickles, should be expelled from the Conservative party. He said that. .
Mr Duncan said in an interview with LBC that Mr Pickles and another fellow Tory, Stuart Pollack, had been involved in lobbying for Israel through the Conservative Friends of Israel, which Mr Pollack once headed. “They are exercising the interests of other countries.”
In a later interview with Times Radio, Mr Duncan said other Conservative MPs and ministers, including Michael Gove, Oliver Dowden, Mr Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Priti Patel, also supported He said he was an extremist who did not condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in the country.
Mr Duncan said some people within the party “refuse to condemn the settlement and are therefore not supporters of international law”. “I think it’s time to root out extremism in and around our parliamentary politics.”
The British Jewish Parliamentary Committee said Mr Duncan’s comments were “in effect accusing two Conservative colleagues, one of whom is Jewish, of dual loyalty” and called them “disgraceful”. He said that.
A Conservative Party spokesperson told the Guardian that Mr Duncan would be investigated by the party over the comments. Mr Duncan responded that anyone seeking to take action against him would find it “dangerously detrimental to their own reputation”.
Fourth former Supreme Court justice says government violates international law by continuing to supply arms to Israel as government remains opaque about legal advice on Israel’s actions after Hamas massacre on October 7 signed a letter claiming that
Sir Robert Carnwath, who served on the Supreme Court from 2012 to 2020, was one of 200 lawyers to sign the letter, bringing the total to around 800. Signatories include former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale.
This came after the Guardian newspaper published a letter from senior lawyers and judges warning that the British government was breaking international law by continuing to supply arms to Israel.
Separately, a former head of MI6 said Israel’s actions in Gaza “border on recklessness”.
“It’s hard to conclude that somehow insufficient attention is being paid to the collateral risks of these operations,” said Alex Younger, who led the Secret Service from 2014 to 2020. Ta.
Lord Cameron refused to answer questions about Israel and Gaza in a BBC interview on Thursday morning and during media questions at a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels.
Downing Street did not say whether it planned to halt sales or when a legal opinion would be published.
According to Israel’s Channel 13 News, Prime Minister Sunak said in a conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday evening that if more aid did not reach Gaza soon, Britain would say Israel was violating international law. He warned the Israeli prime minister that he would make a formal declaration and warned that it could have repercussions for Israel. sales of weapons.
In a video interview with The Sun on Wednesday evening, Mr Sunak said weapons permits were carefully reviewed in accordance with “the regulations and procedures we always follow”.
