As leaders of the UK opposition parties, we call on the government to stop fuelling the war in Yemen

Dear Foreign Secretary,

We write to you on the fourth anniversary of the start of the War in Yemen with regards to the UK government’s ongoing support for the government of Saudi Arabia, and its coalition partners, who are parties to this devastating, long-standing conflict.

We welcome your recent visit to Yemen, the first by a western foreign minister, and welcome the meetings that you attended such as with the director of the World Health Organisation. However we feel compelled to bring your attention to a letter from last October that was sent by our colleagues Stephen Gethins, Emily Thornberry, Christine Jardine, Caroline Lucas, and Jonathan Edwards and that raised the humanitarian situation in Yemen with you, and the UK’s direct complicity in fuelling this conflict for profit.

We refer you, once again, to the crimes committed in the Yemen conflict by a UK ally since the start of this conflict four years ago.

It has been reported that half of all children in Yemen aged between six months and five years are chronically malnourished. There are 17,640 UN-documented civilian casualties in Yemen. The majority of these casualties, estimated at 10,852, were victims of Saudi-led Coalition assaults. There are 20 million people who don’t know if they’re going to be able to get their next week’s supply of food, and 85,000 children are estimated to have died of starvation in the country. These are statistics that you drew attention to during your visit to Yemen.

Since our colleagues’ correspondence last year government policy has not adequately changed. It is clear that your government is unwilling to accept any correlation between the UK’s arms trade and support for the Saudi government, with the crimes that the regime commits enabled by UK weapons and tacit backing.

The UK has awarded at least £4.6bn of arms export licences to Saudi Arabia; this eclipses the aid given to the people of Yemen by the UK that, while increasing, is utterly inadequate for stemming the damage being done in the country during a precarious ceasefire. It is all the more shocking that the value of arms sales overshadows the amount raised by the UN appeal: the largest ever single country appeal ever made.

You and your colleagues in government have often affirmed that the UK’s closeness to Saudi Arabia gives the UK influence over them. Given the extent to which we supply weapons to Saudi Arabia, the leverage we hold over them must be considerable yet their behaviour and appalling human rights abuses have continued unrestrained. The UK cannot be a partner for peace if it continues to sell arms to a murderous regime with one hand, and give aid – minuscule in comparison – with the other.

You have recently warned that the ceasefire agreed in Stockholm could collapse in its entirety. We entreat you in the strongest possible terms to hold your counterparts in Saudi Arabia to the ceasefire, and state the case that the UK government will not accept any further reckless derogations from its terms by coalition forces nor will it tolerate blatant serial human rights violations on civilians among its allies.

It is disappointing that despite all the evidence to the contrary on a conflict that has lasted four years that the government has determined not to use all the means at its disposal to pressure an ally to abide by basic human rights laws.

Germany, Spain, Denmark, Canada, the US senate and congress, the UN human rights council, and the European parliament have all called for the suspension of arms sales on this basis – it is morally reprehensible that the UK government is not only not considering changing its policy but is actively lobbying other foreign governments, as it did with Germany, to resume weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

After four years of intolerable suffering and degradation, time is running out. Yemen stands on the brink of catastrophe.

The UK government must condemn the reckless and barbaric behaviour of the Saudi government, immediately suspend the sale of arms to the regime for use in the war on Yemen pending a comprehensive and independent investigation of all alleged war crimes, and halt all conventional UK military operations in the country.

Lives are at stake, and the UK’s ambiguous indifference to the consequences of Saudi actions has gone on for long enough; the government’s position fails to reflect the values at the heart of our society and we ask that the government, now more than ever, does right by the UK’s voice in this conflict.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Blackford MP, leader of the Scottish National Party (Westminster)
Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the opposition (Labour)
Liz Saville Roberts MP, Westminster group leader (Plaid Cymru)
Caroline Lucas MP, Green Party
Sir Vince Cable, Leader of the Liberal Democrats

This letter was sent to the foreign secretary today.