On Thursday the business secretary’s speech to international affairs think tank Chatham House was disrupted by pro-Palestine activists.
“This man and his government are complicit in genocide. The F-35s are massacring Palestinians, and they have not stopped the trade of F-35s”, yelled one of the protesters who interrupted Jonathan Reynolds.
Despite the government’s partial suspension of arms sales to Israel announced last September, the high-tech fighter jet was spared any sanctions.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy justified the decision to MPs at the time, saying: “The effects of suspending all licences for the F-35 programme would undermine the global F-35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies, and Nato.”
Led by American defence firm Lockheed Martin but with funding from Nato allies like the UK, the programme supplies jets to 19 countries, including the US, Italy, Canada, Australia and, significantly, Israel.
British defence manufacturer BAE Systems also plays a key role in the development, production and sustainment of each jet; around 15 per cent of each one is made in the UK.
Deciding to impose conditions on one partner on the programme, namely Israel, could see the UK frozen out of the deal completely, according to the defence experts.
Former British senior military intelligence officer Philip Ingram told the JC in August: “The UK, under an international agreement with the United States, manufactures some of the components for the F-35. That’s not just the F-35s that the UK is using, but those F-35s that are manufactured for anyone around the world.
“The components that the UK manufactures must have an export licence. And if the end user of that particular fighter jet is Israel, that export licence is for part of the F-35s to go to Israel, which allows the Americans then to export it to Israel as part of that international agreement.”
If the government were to start to impose tougher conditions on arms exports to Israel in a way that could cause disruption to the programme as a whole, it could be much more economically viable for the United States to look for an alternative partner, suggested Ingram
Likewise, former defence minister Lord Spellar said that being seen as unreliable security partner could have a catastrophic effect on the UK’s key defence partnerships and alliances.
“If you’re seen as an unreliable partner, that is disastrous. That isn’t just a problem, that’s a disaster,” he told the JC.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds targetted by pro-Palestine protests (Image: Guido Fawkes).[Missing Credit]
As a result of the hesitancy to suspend the licence, though, Pro-Palestine direct action group Palestine Action has targeted British firms connected to the F-35 supply chain, claiming that: “Through targeted actions, we can collectively break the links in Israel’s military supply chain.”
Similarly, campaign groups Amnesty International and the Campaign Against the Arms Trade have called on the government to stop arms sales to Israel, adding that that: “The failure by all F-35 partner nations to apply their domestic, regional or international legal obligations by halting the supply of F-35 parts and components to Israel has led to devastating and irreparable harm to Palestinians in Gaza”.
Some MPs on the left have also questioned the logic behind the government’s position, claiming that there is a risk of human rights violations by Israeli in Gaza using F-35s.
Green MP Sian Berry told Parliament last week: “In September 2024, the Government admitted … that there was a ‘clear risk’ the UK’s arms exports might be used to commit serious legal violations, and introduced a partial suspension of 29 arms export licences to Israel. But that move exempted the UK’s most financially significant and deadly export: components for the F-35 jets”.
And Labour’s Andy McDonald claimed that “continuing to transfer F-35 components to Israel is a violation of the UK’s domestic and international legal obligations, which include the strategic export licencing criteria, the arms trade treaty, the Geneva conventions and the genocide convention”.
However, despite the political pressure on Labour to take tougher measures against Israel, there are several reasons that mean the government might think twice before imposing restrictions on the F-35 programme.
For example, Lord Spellar pointed out that “business in the North West substantially depends on the parts they make for every for every F-35”.
As well as the obvious desire to hold the onto parliamentary seats Labour gained in the North West at the last election, many of the workers in the supply chain (as well as in defence firms themselves) are represented by trade unions that are affiliated to the Labour Party.
Even though a vocal minority of Labour MPs might favour tougher measures against Israel, there are many who don’t.
Some are willing to vocally stand up for jobs in the defence industry in the face of criticism from parliamentary colleagues.
Labour MP Luke Akehurst said in Parliament last week that “the UK and Israel’s defence co-operation strengthens our international alliances, most obviously through the F-35 programme, which some other honourable Members have rather maligned today, but which has created more than 20,000 jobs in the UK”.
He chided some of his colleagues for “disrupting collaborative programmes that have been painstakingly negotiated over decades with multiple international partners” and claimed it “would mean that we would not be trusted to be a reliable partner in future international collaborative programmes that are critical for our national security, our technological base and the future of our aerospace industry”.
And defence minister Luke Pollard re-emphasised the government’s position of exempting the F-35 programme, saying that the decision was “necessary” in light of the scheme’s “broader strategic role in Nato and its wider implications for international peace and security”.
Moreover, the chances of any crackdown on the F-35 programme were made even more remote by Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement earlier this week.
In it, she announced plans to turn the UK into a “defence industrial superpower” and use the Britain’s defence industry to help generate economic growth.
She told the Commons on Wednesday: “I want to do more with our defence budget, so that we can buy, make and sell things here in Britain. I want to give our world-leading defence companies and those who work in them further opportunities to grow, and to create jobs in Britain, as military spending rightly increases all across Europe”.
She added that she wanted to “make our country a defence industrial superpower, so that the skills, jobs and opportunities of the future can be found right here in the United Kingdom”.
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