The UK government held significant conversations with Washington and other international allies ahead of Monday’s announcement over the suspension of some arms licenses to Israel, Downing Street has confirmed.
The timing of the announcement, made by Foreign Secretary David Lammy in the Commons on the same day of the Jerusalem funeral of a Gaza hostage took place, was driven by the review process, No.10 added, and being a legal matter was made on the first day back for parliament after the summer recess.
The government’s spokesperson refused to disclose exactly when the legal advice was received, in a process started before Christmas under the previous Conservative government and continued after Labour came to power in July.
There were discussions with American government officials on Sunday after the UK made it known it had reached a decision to suspend 30 out of a total of 350 arms licenses to Israel.
A Foreign Office source disputed claims that the Biden government felt let down by Britain’s new stance on arms licenses while according to a source in Labour, there could even have been encouragement for the UK to take their position from Washington in order to heap further pressure on the Israeli government.
Downing Street added that the UK prides itself on having some of the most robust export licensing criteria in the world. “We’ve had significant engagement with both the U.S. and Israel and other international allies ahead of this announcement before taking this decision,” according to the prime minister's office.
“As the Foreign Secretary made very clear in the House yesterday, we’re not taking this decision lightly. But we must take our duty to apply export licensing law seriously. We remain a staunch ally of Israel, committed to their security, and to threats from Iran. We had significant engagement with the U.S., Israel and other international allies before taking this decision.”
Asked about Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the UK had made a “shameful” decision, the British prime minister's spokesperson said: “We remain a staunch ally of Israel.”
”Our ambition is to see the end to this devastating conflict, and we are working extensively with partners on progress towards a ceasefire deal for both sides,” the spokesperson added.
Downing Street rejected criticism from groups such as Amnesty International, which said the suspension of arms licensing didn’t go far enough and should have included the UK contribution to the F-35 fighter jet program, adding this would be logistically impossible.
“We review all export licenses on a case-by-case basis against the strategic licensing export criteria,” said the spokesperson.
“When it comes to the F-35 it’s an aircraft that has operations globally …. it would not be possible to suspend the licensing of F-35 components without prejudicing the entire global F-35 program which plays an important strategic role in NATO and our support for Ukraine.”
Suspending Britain’s input would cause the entire program to be halted and risk security at a time of global uncertainty.
Story published with the permission of Jewish News