Above photo: Sunak meets Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Oct. 19, 2023. Simon Walker / No. 10 Downing Street.
In a leaked recording, the Tory chair of a foreign affairs committee says government lawyers advised Britain to stop arming Israel.
Because it is committing war crimes.
Pressure is growing on the British government to stop arming Israel after a leaked audio recording revealed that it is ignoring the advice of its own lawyers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law and that Britain is in danger of also violating international law by continuing to ship Israel arms.
The leaked remarks were made by Alicia Kearns MP, Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, at a March 13 Tory fundraising event and first published by The Observer on Saturday.
In The Leaked Tape, Kearns Says: “The Foreign Office Has Received Official Legal Advice That Israel Has Broken International Humanitarian Law But The Government Has Not Announced It. They Have Not Said It, They Haven’t Stopped Arms Exports.“
Kearns defended her published remarks, telling the newspaper:
“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make. Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”
It is illegal under British law to export arms which could be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
The Observer reported: “The revelation will place [Foreign Secretary] Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay. Legal experts said that not to do so would risk putting the UK in breach of international law itself, as it would be seen as aiding and abetting war crimes by a country it was exporting arms to.”
‘Must Come Clean’
A Foreign Office spokesman told The Independent newspaper: “We keep advice on Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law under review and ministers act in accordance with that advice, for example when considering export licences. The content of the Government’s advice is confidential.”
Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Cameron and Sunak should “’come clean” and “publish the legal advice they have received,” The Independent reported. The leaked comments raise “serious questions about whether the Government is complying with its own law,” Lammy said.
Stephen Flynn, leader of the Scottish National Party in Parliament, blasted the government for being “on the wrong side of history” and said Sunak and Cameron “owe it to the public and to the high offices they currently hold to be honest about whether they have received advice that Israel has breached international humanitarian law,” the newspaper reported.
“If reports are to be believed, and the UK Government has continued to supply arms and intelligence to Israel whilst knowing they were in breach of international humanitarian law, then the position of both would be untenable,” Flynn said.
In The Leaked Tape, Kearns Says Israel’s
“right to self-defence has a limit in law. It is not limitless. Some of the ways in which Israel is prosecuting this is making their long-term security less certain. It is making our long-term security less certain. I’m amazed that our national threat level has not gone up. And it breaks my heart because I know it could be done differently.”
The Ramifications
The revelation shows a significant crack within the ruling party in Britain on supporting Israel no matter what it does in Gaza. It is an additional sign that Western support for Israel’s genocide is on increasingly shaky ground.
The news of the British government ignoring legal advice against further arming Israel has been ignored in most media outside the U.K., though it has clear implications for nations like Germany, France, Canada, Australia (ABC reported it) and above all, the United States, who are heavily arming Israel to carry out its genocide.
As the British government is trying to publicly ignore its own legal advice that is now publicly known, these governments and their attendant corporate medias are trying to ignore the British leak, lest it should lead to debate within their own countries about the legality of continuing to arm a genocidal state. As it is, Joe Biden is facing tough electoral prospects in November since 70 percent of his own party rejects his Gaza policy.
British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice told The Observer: “Countries supplying arms to Israel may now be complicit in criminal warfare. The public should be told what the advice says.”
Immediately ending arms shipments to Israel is imperative, but it could not undo these governments’ six-month long complicity in the most horrific of crimes.