In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher stepped in to do an arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The opportunity occurred because the US during Carter’s Presidency tried to cut pushing arms around the world. Thatcher concluded the Al Yamamah agreement with the Saudis. It was an odd agreement involving both the Government and BAe Systems, our dominant arms company.  Probably Mark Thatcher was able to take a cut of a million or two in his Mum’s deal, but we do not know because the Committee investigating it kept its findings secret.

All treaties are supposed to be open on the Ponsonby Principle that the UK should have no hidden treaties, but this treaty/agreement remained hidden. From the beginning it  included corruption – giving the Saudi Royal Family billions which was then hidden in the payments made to BAe. During the Blair Government the Guardian and others uncovered the scale of the corruption. It was reported as involving peacock blue limousines, hiring hotels around the world for holidays, gold plated dinner services (the silver ones were turned down), and, if I remember rightly, a Boeing 747 to bring the Royal Family’s shopping home from California. But it was criminal, because bribery had became illegal, and the Serious Fraud Office  began a criminal prosecution. The prosecution did not happen because the Attorney General who is supposed to uphold the rule of law capitulated under pressure, and Blair decreed that prosecuting BAe was not in the national interest and Parliament spinelessly accepted the law should be waived for some.

So BAe supplied Saudi Arabia with Typhoon bombers, bombs and a vast range of other military equipment, year after year, helping, now along with the US, to make it the dominant military power in the Middle East. Here, you need to understand the underlying strategy of selling arms in the Middle East. It began especially with the Iraq-Iran conflict. Iran fell out with the US, mainly because the US controlled the Shah, the CIA ran the Shah’s secret service in Iran and Iranian oil interests. Oh, and the US and Britain had ousted the Iranian Prime Minister and plonked the Shah back in charge to ran Iran to suit the West. Iran was Shi’ite and Saddam was Sunni and the West sold more and more arms to Sunnis in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and realised that arming this conflict was the best way of making money out of the Middle East. The US had no scruples in helping Saddam carry out gas attacks against the Iranians, and then when Saddam started to use his weapons, there were two lucrative wars for the military-industrial complex getting rid of Saddam, and hopefully maintaining control of oil as well. One in 2003 was illegal, against the United Nations, based on a lie and against an already disarmed Saddam. It succeeded in destroying much of Iraq, and Syria has now followed the same way. So the US and Britain have weaponised the Sunni-Shi’ite differences and made them acute in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now in Yemen. They fight and we make money from weapons. We say, “Oh Dear”, but rub our hands at the billions we make through the arms trade.

The Yemen conflict follows this pattern. The differences between the original Government and the Houti rebels was the normal one of a minority suffering some inferior treatment and needing better resourcing. It was a Yemeni matter and required wisdom and a bit of generosity of spirit. But Saudi Arabia entered the conflict, as you do when you have a lot of weapons. They began bombing the Houtis with our bombers and our bombs. The BAe Chairman was unable to deny that BAe workers were actually loading the bombs in the bombers. They have some 6,000 staff working for the Saudis out there. So, year after year we have been supplying the kit to flatten villages and towns in Yemen. The catastrophic war has left 4 million refugees and a further 16 million close to famine and death. It is an horrific humanitarian crisis. Biden stopped US support for the Saudis as soon as he was in office, but Tory Governments have resolutely refused to end the military support.

Even now the Tory Government has refused to close down the supply of weapons and is rubbing its hands because the sales of expensive kit and bombs goes on and on. Capitalism and greed comes before a humanitarian response. We have cut our aid to Yemen by as much as a half, and Patel trying to cut any possibilities of refugees making it here. Obviously, Saudi involvement is neither principled, nor helpful, but our Government does not care as long as we sell weapons and BAe makes a profit. This is our callous Government. We, the US, UK and the UN could insist on a cease-fire in a month, fund care to desperate people and restore peace, if we acted with resolution. But the Johnson Government is so tied to militarism and arms profits it cannot think of anything else. So what are you going to do about it?