Britain 'complicit with war crimes' on arms exports, says ex-diplomat

Britain's system for controlling arms exports is broken, subject to political manipulation and has seen conduct that crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes, a former UK diplomat has claimed.

- Patrick Wintour

Writing for the Guardian, Mark Smith, who resigned from the Foreign Office in August, said officials were instructed to manipulate findings on the misuse of UK arms by allies, and if they did not do so, their reports were edited by senior colleagues to give the impression that the UK was in compliance with the law.

Appealing to serving Foreign Office officials to end their cooperation with a broken process, he wrote: "What I witnessed was not just moral failure but conduct that I believe crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes.

"The British public deserves to know how these decisions are made behind closed doors - and how systemic dysfunction enables the government to perpetuate harm while shielding itself from scrutiny."

He also said his efforts to raise his concerns had been blocked, and he had been ordered not to put his concerns in writing in case they became subject to freedom of information requests.

Smith served as a Middle East desk specialist adviser on arms sales, and subsequently moved to serve as a second secretary at the UK embassy in Dublin. He wrote: "The Foreign Office's handling of these issues is nothing short of a scandal. Officials are bullied into silence. Processes are manipulated to produce politically convenient outcomes. Whistleblowers are stonewalled, isolated and ignored."

Although much of his criticism is directed at the last Conservative government concerning arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, and arms sales to Israel, Smith did not absolve Labour.

He welcomed the UK ban on arms exports to Israel in September, but since then, he said the government had stood by as Israel continued to commit war crimes.