Arms Export Licences: Israel

Debate between Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Zarah Sultana]

Thank you, Sir Christopher. Since being elected, I have raised the issue of arms licences for regimes such as Saudi Arabia, which used British-made weapons in Yemen, so I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill I presented would suspend sales to not just Israel but the likes of Saudi Arabia, whose war in Yemen led to the death of thousands of people with, again, clear and well-documented violations of international law. In another example of shameful disregard for human rights, that war was also facilitated by our Government and is therefore linked to this debate. Export licences to Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the war have been worth a staggering £6.8 million, which is why I have repeatedly called for the House to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is she aware that only two weeks ago in the House the Secretary of State for Defence claimed that arms sales to Israel in the past year were less than £50 million? The figures she has given suggest that he had misinformed himself before he made that statement. Does she have a credible figure for how much is sold to Israel, as well as for the value of Elbit Systems sales and how many of those sales are made internally within Elbit Systems back to Israel itself?

[Zarah Sultana]

As I mentioned, a lot is shrouded in secrecy. We do have the figure of £474 million, but we believe that the figure is much higher. There needs to be true transparency, especially with the arms sales coming from the Government.

Ending this bloody exchange is one of the steps the Government must take to end their complicity in the massacre in Gaza. Even as countries across the globe, and figures from the Pope to the President of France, call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the Government still refuse to heed that call, ignoring the 76% of the British public who back it. Beyond the immediate need to end the bloodshed, Britain has an historical responsibility to push for a just and lasting peace, having been the mandatory power in Palestine during the 1948 Nakba. As we witness a new and even more terrible Nakba, Britain must honour that duty by demanding an immediate ceasefire and ending arm sales today, and by insisting on ending the illegal occupation and on a free Palestine tomorrow.

Israel’s war on Gaza is not the first time British-made weapons have been used for war crimes, but it must be the last. I conclude with these questions to the Minister. Given the overwhelming evidence that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, what assessment have the Government made of Israel’s conformity with international law? Have they made any assessment of it? If they have not, will they commit to immediately making that assessment? Given the overwhelming evidence that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, what assessment have the Government made of Israel’s actions in the light of our export licensing criteria? Again, have they made any assessment of that? If they have not, will they assess whether Israel’s actions are consistent with our licensing criteria as they stand? Finally, will the Government uphold our export licensing rules, international law and basic principles of humanity by immediately suspending arms sales to Israel? I look forward to the Minister’s reply and thank everybody who has joined us for the debate.

Rail Strikes

Debate between Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

This House has just discussed the Government’s disgusting Rwanda deportation policy. On Monday I attended a demonstration against that policy, coming directly from a debate in Parliament on the Government’s similarly disgraceful refusal to ban trans conversion therapy. That debate, the debate on the Rwanda deportations and this afternoon’s motion on the rail strike are connected: they are all about this Tory Government’s attempt to divide our communities and distract from their failure to serve the British people.

That is clear with the Rwanda policy, which has nothing to do with tackling people-smuggling and everything to do with whipping up hate, demonising marginalised groups and pitting people who were born here against people who seek asylum here. That is what the refusal to ban trans conversion therapy—letting abusive practices against trans people go unpunished in order to pit cis women against trans women—is about: division and distraction.

That is also what the demonisation of railway workers and the RMT Union is all about: threatening anti-democratic and anti-worker legislation; vilifying workers who are standing up for jobs, pay and conditions; and pitting those railway workers against other workers. It is all an attempt to distract and divide, at a time when this Government are overseeing a cost of living emergency and a growing poverty crisis across the country.

Railway workers are clear: this strike is a last resort, no matter what Conservative Members say. The union and the workers have been calling for the dispute to be resolved for two years, but Ministers have refused to do so. Ministers have refused to get employers to withdraw the threat of compulsory redundancies against thousands of railway workers or to end the pay freeze for workers, which is really a pay cut, worth thousands of pounds per worker, when inflation rises to 10% and beyond. This dispute is not about modernising the railways or whatever else people say; it is about attacking workers, declining standards and worsening services for passengers.

These workers—we should applaud them for it—are standing up for their jobs and pay, but are being scapegoated by a Tory Government who would rather distract and divide.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My hon. Friend must be aware of the anger that many people who work in the rail industry feel—those who clean and repair the carriages, those who repair the track and those who provide the catering that many Members of this House enjoy—at being told basically to take a pay cut and face compulsory redundancies at a time when billions has been poured into the train operating companies, which have done very nicely out of their cosy arrangement with this Government.

[Zarah Sultana]

I absolutely agree. These tactics from the Government are to stop us talking about the fact that private rail companies take more than £500 million out of the railway system every year in private profits. It is the richest in the country who are truly raking it in, from the Chancellor, who is one of the wealthiest people in the country, to the record number of UK billionaires, one third of whom donate to the Conservative Party—[Interruption.] Tory Members can make all the sounds they like, but the facts are the facts.

That is all while working people are experiencing the biggest squeeze on living standards since the 1950s. Tory Members want us to believe that railway workers are the problem. They want us to blame refugees, not Tory cuts, for the crisis in public services and why they are at breaking point. They want us to think trans women are a threat to cis women. This House should be clear: the problem is not railway workers, it is not refugees and it is not trans women. The problem is this Tory Government and the billionaires who back them.