Our government’s recent announcement of a “double lock” under which the UK will refuse all licence applications for arms to Israel that “materially contribute to the occupation” is a testament to the mass movement against the UK arming Israel’s genocide of Gaza. However, it falls short of a complete, two-way arms embargo and upholds the F-35 carve-out, which allows the government to ignore its export licensing criteria to continue to send F-35 genocide jet components to Israel via the global supply pool.
We must continue to mobilise for a full, two-way arms embargo on Israel, and advocate for change to the systemic injustices of the UK’s current export licensing system. If the UK’s export licensing system was following its stated criteria, we would not be met with such partial half-measures in the first place.
During the ongoing genocides in Gaza and Sudan, UK-produced weapon components have contributed to the killing of over 200 000 Palestinian and Sudanese people. Weapons exported from the UK to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s war on Yemen have played a role in the deaths of over 377 000 Yemeni people. How did our export licensing system allow for these mass atrocities?
When challenged on this, our government has defended these exports, repeatedly stating that the UK has “one of the most robust export-licensing systems in the world”. In response, many have pointed to how dysfunctional and cynical the UK’s export licensing system is.
The question is over the extent to which the system is simply broken, or whether it deliberately functions in a way so as to allow the government to disregard its own Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (SELC), and to forge loopholes when public pressure forces the government to appear as though it is following them.
On paper, the SELC appear solid. They makes clear the need for the government to refuse export licences to a UK weapons company based on factors such as its potential impact on peace, security, human rights, and crucially, where there is a “clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation” of the UK’s International Humanitarian Law (IHL) obligations.
In reality, there are a myriad of ways that the UK’s export licensing system seemingly allows for weapons companies to avoid these SELC criteria. SELC criteria allow huge scope for the government to interpret them in ways that suit its goal of maintaining arms exports, and even for the government to discard the criteria completely when all else fails.
The UK’s export licensing system functions to allow the continued export of military goods to countries allied with Britain’s geopolitical interests, aligned largely with those of the United States, seemingly with little regard for the level of death and destruction those exports facilitate.
Politically-motivated delay and inaction within the SELC are leading to more civilian deaths and human rights violations. Delays on suspending export licences and inaction on accountability measures within the SELC are wreaking havoc upon the world.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations
Export licence approvals are supposed to ensure weapons are not sent to countries where there is a clear risk that they could be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the body of international law which is intended to protect civilians and military personnel who have been wounded or captured. It is binding on all states and non-state actors.
Yet, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Israel, the UAE and Turkey remain major recipients of UK arms, despite it being widely acknowledged that these countries have facilitated or committed serious breaches of IHL. The people of Yemen, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, and the Kurdish peoples of Turkey, Syria and Iraq are suffering the lethal consequences of this.
Even where a country respects IHL, exporting weapons still facilitates the global arms trade. CAAT will not rest until the entire system of death and destruction is dismantled. The movement against the global arms trade must look more broadly than individual IHL breaches.
For years, the UK Government has employed various legal and moral sleights of hand to justify these licensing decisions. Ultimately, these decisions are highly politicised and leave the government with an enormous amount of discretion to disregard the criteria, as illustrated by judicial reviews brought by CAAT over arms exports to Saudi Arabia and Al-Haq over the legality of the aforementioned F-35 carve out.
The first partial export licence suspension to Israel: delayed and inadequate
In June 2024, The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU), which reviews export licence applications, found in regard to Israel that “it is uncontentious that conduct which could, in principle, satisfy the physical component of genocide continues to take place in Gaza”.
Yet, it took a mass movement of public pressure for the UK to partially suspend arms exports to Israel in September 2024. Even this fell catastrophically short of the full two-way arms embargo on Israel that is needed. Less than 10% of licences were suspended, and the aforementioned F-35 carve-out was established. Israel has used F-35 combat aircraft intensively in its genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza, including using it to drop 2,000lb bombs on heavily populated areas, indiscriminately killing and maiming over 73 000 Palestinians.
The F-35 carve-out – based on an obscure provision of the UK’s export control laws, which allows the government to completely ignore the SELC and to apply “specific measures to specific cases”, was put in place under the guise of UK involvement in the F-35 programme being necessary for “global peace and security”. Since this vague assertion was made, F-35 fighter jets have been used in US military attacks on Venezuela and US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Lebanon. The UK is the most significant partner in the F-35 Fighter Jet programme other than the United States. Fifteen percent of the value of every F-35 is produced in the UK.
UK arms exports to Israel continue, and increase
In the period following the partial suspension, UK arms exports to Israel surged. CAAT’s research shows that in 2024, the overwhelming majority of individual licences for military equipment to Israel, totalling £127.6 million, were issued between October and December 2024, after the partial arms export suspension. This figure is higher than the total value of licences for export to Israel granted between 2020 and 2023 combined.
This unprecedented surge in export licences makes very clear the extent to which arms companies are able to avoid adhering to SELC criteria and any export licence suspensions.
Significantly, this surge in export licences can’t be explained by the notorious F-35 loophole, as most F-35 components are exported through “Open Licences”, which means a company registered with the F-35 programme does not need to apply for a single issue export licence each time it wants to export F-35 components. This functions to hide the true value of UK exports to Israel from the public. Opacity by design continues to facilitate war crimes.
In addition to the F-35 loophole, other aspects of UK components arming Israel’s genocide of Gaza were also exempted from September 2024’s partial suspension – notably, trainer aircraft. The M-346 Lavi trainer aircraft, produced by Moog in the UK, is the final stage of training aircraft before Israeli pilots fly the deadly F-35s and F-16s to bomb Gaza. Although not used directly in combat, training a genocide pilot still facilitates a genocide.
The failures of “end-use monitoring”
Significantly, the partial suspension included drone components, unless they were sent from the UK to Israel and then onto a third country. Yet Declassified UK revealed that a contract between Leicester-based UAV Tactical Systems, Elbit and Romania, which involved UK-produced drone components that were supposed to be exported from Israel to Romania, resulted in these components remaining in Israel. Despite Elbit publicly stating in April 2026 that the components would indeed be re-exported as per the terms of the licence, in July 2026, UK ministers were still unable to confirm whether or not this had been fulfilled.
The drone components may eventually be exported to Israel, but if Elbit decides to use them in drones for Israel’s genocide of Gaza, there is no way for the UK government to know if this has happened, let alone prevent it. Where was the monitoring in the UK’s export licensing system to ensure these drones were sent onwards to Romania? How can there be no accountability?
It is likely that this may be one of the factors contributing to the staggering increase in UK weapon exports to Israel following September 2024’s partial arms export licence suspension. This again points to a serious lack of follow-up, investigation and accountability from the UK’s export licensing system.
Failure to monitor for “diversion-risk”
Linked to these shortcomings over end-use monitoring are concerns over diversion risk. Export licence approvals are supposed to be assessed for their risk of diversion to an “undesirable end-user or for an undesirable end-use”, yet it is evident UK-produced weapon components are being diverted. What is an “undesirable end-user” if not a militia widely acknowledged as playing a key role in the Sudanese genocide, such as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)?
In October 2025, UK-produced weapon components previously exported to the UAE were found in the hands of the RSF, responsible for genocidal atrocities in Sudan. It is widely acknowledged that the UAE is arming the RSF. In July 2026, as the risk of further RSF-inflicted ethnic cleansing continued to heighten in the city of el-Obeid, our government continued to defend its export of weapon components to the UAE.
Impunity for UK exporters
Furthermore, in April 2026 it was revealed that a shipment of UK-produced military goods en route to Israel was seized by Belgium authorities, as it breached Belgium’s stricter arms controls on Israel. The Department of Business and Trade (DBT) and the ECJU did not review, suspend, amend nor revoke any relevant export licences following this. Given this lack of action following this seizure, how can we trust that investigation is being done to ensure there is no diversion of exports from the UK to “undesirable end-users”?
This seizure further demonstrates that there is no accountability within the UK export licensing system for companies that breach the export controls of transit countries. We also must ask, if the UK supposedly has “one of the most robust export licensing systems in the world”, why are UK arms controls on Israel so much weaker than those in Belgium?
It would appear that our government takes at face value what arms export recipients say about the use of said exports, without taking measures to investigate and verify these claims. We can see this both through our government’s continued export of weapons to the UAE, and through the lack of accountability measures taken following the Belgium seizure.
Companies linked to genocide can exempt themselves from needing to apply for a military export licence
In 2022, British company RCV Engines exempted itself from needing to apply for a military export licence from the UK government by arguing that its engines were not designed for military use. However, Israel Aerospace Industries uses RCV-produced engines in its drones which are perpetuating Israel’s Gaza genocide. There was no response form our government after Declassified UK revealed this link. How many other times has this happened?
We must seek answers and accountability from our government regarding the weakness of the UK’s export licensing system. As we continue to campaign for an end to the global arms trade, challenging our government’s arms export licensing criteria plays a key role in confronting what the global arms trade relies on: countries like the UK continuing to export weapons used in genocides and wars. Take action now and email your MP!
Demands:
-
The UK must close the loophole in the export licensing system that allows for the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (SELC) to be set aside when the government so decides.
-
The government must adopt a precautionary approach to evaluating the risk of human rights abuses, IHL violations, and other key aspects of the SELC, rather than the present approach of requiring almost absolute proof of violations before it will refuse or suspend licences.
-
Implement a complete, two-way arms embargo on Israel, which closes the F-35 “carve-out” and includes a suspension on the export of all components involved in the training of Israeli forces.
-
Implement a complete, two-way arms embargo on the UAE for so long as the UAE continues to arm the Rapid Support Forces.
-
Establish transparent, comprehensive processes around diversion risk assessment and end-use monitoring protocols, including post-export verification to ensure equipment is in the possession of those it is supposed to be.
-
Implement measures to ensure that exporters comply with third country export and transit controls when exporting licensed goods, and to suspend licences when they breach them.
