IIf you want to get a clear picture of the character of the modern Conservative party, and the full extent of the damage it has caused during its recent tenure in power, there is no better place to start than Yemen, which by the late 2010s had become the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, according to the United Nations.
This was not a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, caused in no small part by allies backed by the British government. The war and Britain’s role in it hardly made the front pages. But in terms of the scale of human suffering it was the worst episode in British diplomacy since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It should have been a national scandal.
In 2015, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a war against Yemeni rebels known as the Houthis, who had overthrown the internationally recognized government the previous year. Then-British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond promised that the UK would “support the Saudis in every practical way short of combat.” This meant continued supplies of ammunition, parts, logistical support, and maintenance for the fleet of British-made military jets that make up the bulk of the Saudi Royal Air Force. Essential Nutrition These fighter jets continued to operate over Yemeni skies for several years, with devastating results.
Since the war began, Human rights organizationsHumanitarian NGOs and UN agencies have warned that the Gulf coalition forces areExtensive and systematic The use of “indiscriminate air strikes” was planned, including bombing schools, medical facilities, weddings, funerals, markets, civilian homes and critical infrastructure. A punitive air and sea blockade was implemented, impoverishing civilians in an apparent mass punishment campaign.
In 2018, Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from extreme hunger in the first three and a half years of the war, citing coalition war tactics as the main cause. United Nations Development Programme estimates Sum of 377,000 conflict-related deaths By the end of the year, 154,000 people had died directly from acts of violence, and the rest were the result of man-made humanitarian disasters. Alex de WaalThe leading hunger expert described Yemen as “the hunger crime of a generation, perhaps of this century” and said responsibility “reaches beyond Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, all the way to London and Washington.”
The Conservative government’s role in the Yemen war complemented its wider Middle East policy, coinciding with a wave of pro-democracy protests that swept the Arab-majority world in the winter of 2010-11. While the Houthis cannot be considered part of that movement, they were nevertheless a threat to the conservative regional order, and despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s opportunistic support for the uprisings in Libya and Syria, Britain’s overall policy was to double down on its traditional support for the authoritarian status quo.
In Bahrain, a peaceful pro-democracy movement was violently suppressed by the monarchy. British support In the form of arms supplies Diplomatic justificationLondon too Weapons provided and Diplomatic Support Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi carried out a military coup that left hundreds dead and wiped out the country’s nascent democracy. Massacred in the streetAcross the region, conservative parties have delivered strategically important votes of confidence to all pro-Western authoritarians and human rights violators. IsraelArms sales to these regimes Nearly doubled In the five years since 2011, military cooperation It has deepened significantlyand Economic Transactions It prospered.
At the heart of this regional state system are the fossil-fuel rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf. For successive British prime ministers, the reward for maintaining the status quo in the Middle East was a steady flow of Gulf “oil money” to the British defense industry. Financial Services Industry For the UK economy as a whole, this is a small price to pay for maintaining national ties. Former imperial patronBut the influx of oil money is a threat to their safety or even their survival. Sustainable Betting For the UK amid the global climate crisis.
Conservative governments have consistently put the strategic interests of the British state and British capital above the rights and lives of people in the Middle East, contributing significantly to untold suffering and loss of life and plunging the region into deep instability, and given the available evidence, there is little reason to expect any substantive change from the new Labour government.
When Keir Starmer ran for leadership in 2020, he pledged to “end arms sales to Saudi Arabia”, but this was predictably watered down to an intention to “review the situation”. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy says “We need to be prepared to work with partners like Saudi Arabia [and the] United Arab Emirates, [though] “Your values may not be entirely aligned,” he says, repeating verbatim a familiar Conservative argument from the previous 14 years and from the previous Labour government, which in fact sold Saudi Arabia a fleet of Typhoon fighter jets that were later used to crush Yemen. The fact that Labour refuses to rule out continued arms sales to Israel, despite clear and mounting evidence that Israel is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism, is a stark reminder of the Conservative Party’s failure to uphold its commitments to the cause. Genocide The events in Gaza offer a dark but clear sign of what is to come: business as usual will continue, regardless of the cost to life.
