An arms embargo on Israel could be a military and diplomatic ‘disaster’ for UK, say experts

Led by American defence firm Lockheed Martin, the programme supplies the high-tech jets to 19 countries, including the United States, UK, Italy, Canada, Australia and Israel.

British defence manufacturer BAE Systems plays a key role in the development, production and sustainment of each jet; around 15 per cent of each is made in the UK.

However, any stringent arms embargo could see the UK frozen out of the F-35 programme altogether.

Former British senior military intelligence officer Philip Ingram explained: “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 tough conditions on arms exports to Israel, it could be much more economically viable for the United States to look for an alternative partner who is not applying those rules.

There is also a widespread view that any arms embargo could send the wrong message to terrorists in the Middle East.

Recently, Lord George Robertson, the former Nato secretary-general, was asked by the government to conduct a defence review.

He said the UK was facing a “deadly quartet” of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran – the main sponsor of terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis that have been attacking Israel since October 7 – and should be ready to confront them.

Major General Tim Cross, a senior former British military officer who was responsible for post-invasion planning for the Iraq War, told the JC: “We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Israel is really the only democratic country in that part of the world.

“Rather like Ukraine, Israel is fighting our war for us against some pretty nasty regimes like Hamas and like Iran.”

He added: “I’m not convinced that we should be doing anything that undermines our support for Israel, who are trying to hold firm as a sovereign state against being wiped out by Hamas and Iran.”

However, former Labour defence minister John Spellar told the JC he was “less worried about what message it sends to the terrorists than the message that it sends to our allies, because it’s saying Britain is not a reliable ally.”

Former Defence Minister John Spellar. Credit: John Spellar, Twitter/X.[Missing Credit]

​Being seen as unreliable, Spellar said, could have a catastrophic effect on the UK’s key security 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 continued: “It would cause huge friction with the United States, whichever administration.

“Japan and Italy may start to question the GCAP [Global Combat Air Programme, working on the sixth-generation stealth fighter jet to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon].

“And the Australians would then say, can we rely on Britain when it comes to Aukus? [the trilateral security partnership between the UK, United States and Australia] In which case, should we really just completely throw our hand in with the Americans?”

Britain’s army is the smallest it has been since the Napoleonic Wars. In May this year, the number of regular soldiers fell to fewer than 73,000, less than half than it was during the Falklands War in 1982 (163,000).

Senior American military figures have seen those numbers and expressed concern that the UK is no longer a top-level fighting force.

Further restrictions on the defence industry could lead the Americans to conclude that Britain is not up to scratch as a military presence and, put bluntly, is not special anymore.

John Spellar continued: “One of the fundamentals that Labour’s leadership clearly understood and all the stuff that John Healey [the Defence Secretary] has done, rightly, as we did in the run-up to 1997 – was to say that you can rely on Labour on defence.

“But if we then say that we’re basically a middle-ranking power, now punching below our weight, and we’re unreliable, then that damages your whole standing in the international scene and undermines your diplomatic credibility, as well as very much damaging your credibility with the exactly the electorate that you’re trying to appeal to.”

Any toughening of the arms export regime would also be exploited by the  commercial rivals of the UK, which already has one of the strictest arms export criteria.

“France will be all over the Middle East trying to capitalise on this, trying to paint Britain as unreliable,” said Spellar.

Despite the political pressure from the anti-arms lobby and some backbench Labour MPs, it would be unwise of the government to capitulate to them, he said.

Spellar said: “If they moved substantially on arms exports, the [anti-Israel] campaigners will just pocket that and make more demands.

“And therefore, there’d be very little political gain out of it.

“To balance against what would be the real considerable cost to their growth agenda.”

According to ADS, an aerospace and defence trade association, there are an estimated 427,500 jobs liked to the industry.

Spellar said: “Britain is a tier-one partner [in terms of aerospace capabilities]. Business in the north west [of England] substantially depends on the parts they make for every for every F-35.”

The potential impact of a restrictive arms embargo on Israel would therefore not only hurt Britain’s defence industry but also the communities in which they are based.

Many of these workers are represented by trade unions that fund the Labour Party and they are unlikely to keep quiet if their members’ jobs are at risk.

If the arms-to-Israel issue required a political face-saving remedy, the government could opt for an embargo with a more limited scope rather than anything that will impact Israel’s military capabilities.

This could even include ministers announcing an embargo on equipment that the UK has never sold Israel – nor has ever had any intention of selling – such as white phosphorus artillery shells.

An arms embagro could also hurt the UK’s defence capabilities themselves.

Israel is the third largest supplier of arms to the UK, accounting for 2.7 per cent of the UK’s arms imports, (the United States the largest and provides around 89 per cent).

A response from Israel in kind could impact the UK’s access to a range of high-tech kit. This includes drones like the Hermes-450 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which was used extensively by British forces in Afghanistan and developed by Israeli firm Elbit Systems.

The Watchkeeper UAV – another drone – developed jointly by Elbit and Thales provides the UK armed forces with intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability.

However, according to Ingram, the fact a potential arms embargo on Israel is even up for discussion is due to a huge failure of information warfare.

“A lot of the cries in the international press around what’s going on inside Israel is a result of a hugely successful information campaign [by Iran and proxies like Hamas],” he said.

The reality is that both the West and Israel have to become much more proactive in the information domain in order to have a hope of tackling the problem.

In the words of Cross: “Most civilisations crash and burn because they lose faith and confidence in themselves.

“If we don’t understand what countries like Israel and Ukraine are fighting for and are prepared to really support them, then that’s part of that issue.

While “it’s easy to be critical and to point the finger at countries like Israel,” the broader context is of a rising China, nuclear-armed North Korea and a potentially nuclear-armed Iran posing a significant threat to the post-Cold War world order.

“Western civilisation is in trouble,” he said.