The UK foreign secretary’s announcement of a “double lock” on arms sales to Israel earlier this month has had no impact, with the government declining to suspend any existing licences, despite reports suggesting otherwise.

On 8 September, Ed Miliband announced the double lock during a Commons speech on banning settlement trade. He said the government would:

refuse all licence applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation.

This week, a number of news outlets reporting on the Labour conference erroneously suggested the government had suspended licences since the double lock announcement.

In addition to the 29 licences initially suspended, 56 licences have been refused since the “first lock”, announced in September 2024. However in recent days ministers have confirmed that no further arms licences have been suspended since the double lock was announced.

In response to a parliamentary question, on 16 September, Labour minister Blair McDougall wrote:

We have also reviewed all extant licences for exports to Israel on the same basis…No additional licences have been revoked or suspended since 8 September 2026.

The minister added:

This is largely because licences for items that might materially contribute to the occupation have already been suspended because of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza conflict.

In response to another question, a minister at the Foreign Office, Stephen Doughty, stated on 21 September that the government does not see trainer aircraft and their components as materially contributing to the occupation. As such they remain licensed for export to Israel.

When are arms not arms?

Trainer aircraft enable pilots to practice on less expensive jets before participating in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. They also provide cover for its ground troops currently occupying the 141 square mile strip.

Miliband has also defended the F-35 “carve out”, an exemption to suspensions which began in 2024. He claims that:

those who say we should stop supplying parts to the global supply chain are actually advocating the downing of the whole programme, which is crucial to our NATO and other allies.

Miliband has repeatedly sought to appease critics who are angry at the UK government’s wide-ranging support for Israel’s genocide of the native Palestinian population in Gaza, as well as ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

At the Labour conference, he said:

I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you, you were right.

Miliband added:

We have reset our approach. We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out the evidence of war crimes in Gaza. We call out Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. And we match words with actions.

Despite the rhetorical flourish in his conference speech, the foreign secretary did not mention arms sales. When challenged by Channel 4 on international humanitarian law assessments, he defended what he called “robust processes”.

Miliband also pointed to the “increasing evidence of war crimes”. And he said Labour was “too slow” in the past to call out what is happening.

Commenting, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) spokesperson Leo Verity said:

Government recognition of ethnic cleansing, Israeli settler-terrorism and of the illegality of the occupation is the first step to ending UK complicity. But for the brutalised Palestinian people, all that matters is action, on arms sales and beyond.

Right now it seems that the Burnham government is hot on talk but cold on action, with the ‘double lock’ on arms to Israel looking more like ‘doubling down’.

The government continues to defend its unprecedented licensing ‘carve out’ for F-35 fighter parts, despite its key role in the Israeli genocide, with the jets being used at five times the normal rate since 7 October 2023, including in ‘beast mode’. Such a position is morally indefensible.

It is also inexcusable that arms licences covering items like components remain unaffected by the ‘double lock’ policy. These include trainer aircraft for the IDF and incorporation licences that ensure the flow of shipments on which the Israeli arms industry relies for the production of their own arms exports.

For the many Palestinians being displaced if not slaughtered by Israel daily, it is not too late for Britain to act. That means matching words with actions: the UK must implement a complete, two-way arms embargo, investigate every single Briton who served in the Israel Defence Forces during the genocide, and halt all intelligence sharing with the apartheid regime.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

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