Alwaght- Britain’s opposition Labor party has called for an arms embargo on all members of the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen.
Speaking to the Middle East Eye, Fabian Hamilton Labor party shadow minister for peace said, "We should not be selling weapons to any state that uses, or could potentially use, weapons we supply for internal repression or for foreign wars."
Hamilton said the recent calls by party leader Jeremy Corbyn to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia over its bombardment of Yemen would be widened to include all nations involved in the bloody conflict.
It would be the first move by a future Labor government that would overhaul the arms sales regime to ensure exports would only be made to "states with a long history of using weapons solely for defensive purposes".
On the sales of arms to the Saudi-led coalition engaged in the bombardment of Yemen, he said: "I don't believe we have any business providing weapons of war for proxy wars."
When asked if this would mean an embargo on the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Eygpt, he responded: "Absolutely."
Last month, the Britain’s defense secretary, Michael Fallon signed a new military deal with the Saudi regime, in a sign of deepening relations.
The West Asia region is a key market for the UK's $9.3bn a year arms industry, which has sold almost $5.3bn of arms to Saudi Arabia since it began its bloody aggression against Yemeni people in March 2015.
The Saudi-led coalition started the illegal war on Yemen in August 2015 to oust the popular Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who resigned as president and fled to Riyadh. The Saudis have failed to achieve their stated objective and are now stuck in the Yemen quagmire while indiscriminately bombarding the impoverished stated on an almost daily basis.
Over 13,000 people of civilians have died in the Yemen conflict, with Saudi-led coalition air strikes continuing to be the leading cause of civilian deaths, including child deaths, according to the UN.
