Whistleblower resigns over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel
Mark Smith is a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He spent his career working in the Middle East directorate and serving in the Arab world. He was a lead officer on arms sales policy, responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law. In August 2024, he resigned over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza. He could not be clearer: “This is not self-defence – it is collective punishment. It is genocide. The time for silence is over.”
“The Foreign Office’s handling of these issues is nothing short of a scandal. Officials are bullied into silence. Processes are manipulated to produce politically convenient outcomes. Whistleblowers are stonewalled, isolated and ignored. And all the while, the UK government continues to arm regimes that commit atrocities, hiding behind legal loopholes and public relations spin.”
“I followed every internal procedure available to me to raise my concerns. I engaged the whistleblowing team, wrote to senior officials and even contacted the foreign secretary, David Lammy, directly. At every turn, I was met with delays, obfuscation and outright refusal to engage. It became clear that the system is not designed to hold itself accountable – it is designed to protect itself at all costs.”
“The UK’s complicity in war crimes cannot continue. We must demand transparency and accountability in our arms export policies. Ministers must be held to the same legal and ethical standards that they claim to uphold. Civil servants must be empowered to provide impartial advice without fear of political interference, and whistleblowers must be protected, not punished, for speaking the truth.”
“The situation in Gaza could not be more acute. The UK’s closest ally now proposes the mass expulsion of 2.1 million people from Gaza and the demolition of one of the most densely populated civilian areas on Earth – this is ethnic cleansing. I call on my former colleagues – those who still believe in the values of integrity and justice – to refuse to be complicit. Do not rubber-stamp reports that whitewash crimes against humanity. This is not self-defence – it is collective punishment. It is genocide. The time for silence is over. Do not allow ministers to trade human lives for political expediency. The time for accountability is now.”
Read his full article HERE.
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Yes, I was thinking about using this example to illustrate the evil that goes on in offices during office hours, the routine bureaucracy of atrocity. But you have to reflect on what Mark Smith talks about what the system was designed for: “to protect itself at all costs”, yes, but self-protection is a common feature of such systems. What we see is characteristic of a military dictatorship, with only the outward trappings of parliamentary process. A significant mass of this diplomatic corps is trained up and selected for at an early age, as a cohort of Establishment loyalists, and beholden to the royal ruler (in whose gift the top jobs are). This isn’t a new phenomenon; Labour have been as imperial-militaristic in office as the Conservatives or Liberals. But since WW2, as the bottom empire to the USAmerican top, this culture has been curated to please the boss. The same likely goes, with some variation, for other NATO countries, and the empires’ clients and puppets.
Despairing, I couldn’t agree more!