Following the long and ugly tradition of previous Prime Ministers, Theresa May welcomed someone who is pounding innocent lives in Yemen as they meet.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson described the visit as seeing the UK’s relationship with Saudi “turn a new page”. The purpose of the visit – as Boris has pointed out, relates to British exports to the country, which have risen to £6.2BN – a 41% increase since 2010.
These are almost entirely from arms sales, including advanced munitions and Typhoon jets, which have been used in the war on Yemen.
Aside from this, the British hope that Riyadh will choose London for the planned stock market flotation of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, will mean silence when it comes to raising any criticism of this regime.
Even though Saudi has been repeatedly criticised by the UN and human rights groups for breaking human rights laws, such visits still take place. What does this then say about the importance of the UN?
It is clear that Theresa May – like her predecessors – is putting the interests of arms dealers above the lives of innocent Yemeni Muslims.
In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair even personally intervened to put a halt to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into corruption and bribery in the Al Yamamah arms deal.
The UN estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen and over 2 million have been internally displaced since 2017.
Yemen is now considered the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis”.
Yet despite this, the UK continues to be in bed with Saudi Arabia.
The hypocrisy is rife – successive British governments play the human rights card on one hand, whilst providing arms sales to those who commit the worst atrocities on the other.
The British people should know that their Government is complicit in the deaths of thousands and Muslims should know that there is no hope from the treacherous West.
We must carve our own political future by working to establish an independent Caliphate that will put the interests of Muslims over Western capitalist interests.
