To ask Conservatives...

[hackmum]

I'm not being goady, but what is the ethical justification for selling arms to Saudi Arabia?

Surely it's about money? Profit, pure and simple. It's the language of the Tories.

You know the labour government also sold arms to Saudi. And to Syria.

Did we only start selling arms to them when the Tories were in power?!

Oh FFS!!! Here we go again 🙄🙄

It's not a party political issue. We've been selling arms to the Saudis in exchange for oil under Labour, Tory and coalition governments since the 1960s.

We have sold them successive generations of fighter aircraft : Lightning, Tornado & now Typhoon.

Guess the same justification labour had.

Ok. Question to anyone in that case. If we are worried about terrorism, and we disapprove of extreme Islamism, why do we sell arms to an extreme Islamist state that is probably funding terrorists? Is there anyone willing to attempt an ethical justification for it?

The factual reason I can help with. Whether it is ethical or not is up to you...

Britain split the Middle East up into separate states in the 19th C and allowed those states to become independent in the mid 20th C. Every state was split so that it had a regional power but not all of it. Lots of the states were disgruntled by the split for reasons of religious tensions and political ties. As a result, circumstances such as Iraq invading Kuwait happened. Saudi Arabia has remained our ally throughout and assisted in stability in the region. As a reward, we make allowances for Saudi's international errors, human rights breaches and home grown terrorism (most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudi). And, apparently, we provide them with arms to support their regional stability role. And that is about it...

Not sure what answers you think you will get from the average Conservative voter, OP.

I think I'm going to stop reading any post that starts with "l'm not being goads but...."

Ffs.

Can I also just point out something that keeps getting missed about Right wing politics on here. Yes labour is about a bigger state, more state involvement, spread of the wealth. It doesn't mean that (centre) right wing means 'fuck you, if you cannot stand on your own 2 feet'. It's about not having the state over involved in your daily life and promoting the 3rd sector as a means of support and community help. I am pro-NHS but, for example, when the NHS was born, there was considerable disquiet about hospital foundation charities being disbanded. Over labour governments too, the 3rd sector has grown. Where I think the key difference lies is making companies and corporations free market. I do strongly believe that if a company goes down the pan then that's it's problem, as long as down to market forces and not crime (like BHS). Under the Labour government we spent a lot of time touting and selling Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi amongst other ME countries and were very keen to sell to India also.

True re Labour.

It's all about money and access to oil.

There is no ethical justification at all whatsoever.

Our governments do things which are ethically questionable, at best. This is one of them.

But surely the time comes when someone who is funding terrorists isn't really your ally? Still, at least that was an attempt at a sensible answer, unlike the fatuous "Labour did it, therefore we don't have to consider the ethical issues".

It doesn't mean that (centre) right wing means 'fuck you, if you cannot stand on your own 2 feet'. It's about not having the state over involved in your daily life and promoting the 3rd sector as a means of support and community help

That's interesting because my understanding is that under the Tories, we've seen so much more power taken away locally and consolidated such that the government has more control centrally. You see it with education, health and other regulation. The state is less obvious in your day to day life but it certainly is very much there.

That was a reply to WhereDoes, by the way.

We also sold the super gun to Iraq then launched Desert Storm when they invaded Kuwait. Tories used to gun run for the IRA in the 1910s and 20s.

Because imo believitornot there has been a drive to occupy the centre ground and also the holding onto Labour policies. Just as labour plans to hold onto some Con policies such as they acknowledge (implicitly) the reduction of policing by 10k.

I agree however that central govt should get out of education policy and should stop dicking around in the national curriculum and the curriculum should be subject to a large scale deregulation. On the flip side, I think the NHS issue is a tricky one due to issues of safety, conformity and performance between NHS trusts.

fuckwitery I asked the question because I was genuinely interested in the answer. If people can't respond without being snide, aggressive or fatuous, then that says a lot more about their own insecurities than it does about the person asking an entirely straightforward question.

For money for the Tories! The same reason that the Tories do anything. If this happened under Labour (which I doubt, I was told today that Labour started selling the NHS to Virgin Care and so looked into it and surprise surprise it was the Tories in 2016!) but if they did that was before all of these seemingly endless attacks so why aren't the Tories even prepared to review the situation??? Abhorrent behaviour! TM should resign for her role as Home Secretary for 6 years and her cuts to the police and she should apologise for her rant about the police scaremongering and "crying wolf" when they tried to warn her! The media would be "screaming" RESIGN into Corbyn's face if was responsible for these failures but seeing as their big boys at the top are all in bed with the Tories they will play this down and keep shouting about the IRA fake news. Labour is the only credible option ... even Stephen Hawking, Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky have endorsed him!! That tells me something!

Selling arms to the Saudis doesn't just keep us supplied with lots of lovely oil. It also supports tens of thousands of well-paid high-tech British jobs in companies like BAE Systems, GKN & Rolls-Royce.

I'm not trying to justify any of this, I'm simply pointing out the reality of the situation.

It's not a straightforward question. As numerous people have told you, we have been selling arms to the Saundis for decades, under Labour as well as Conservatives.

So why make this a question aimed at Conservative voters, if not to be toast? Or could it possibly be that you started a thread to have a go at people who vote differently to you without even taking the time first to check your fundamental premise wasn't completely flawed?

May I ask what you plan to do with the answers now you have them?

Op, the comment saying Labour did it too would probably have been in response to you directing your question to just Conservatives?

goady, not toast.

I agree however that central govt should get out of education policy and should stop dicking around in the national curriculum and the curriculum should be subject to a large scale deregulation. On the flip side, I think the NHS issue is a tricky one due to issues of safety, conformity and performance between NHS trusts

I think it's disingenuous to claim that the Tories are small state - they're not really. They just cut costs but if they were truly small state, they would fundamentally change the nature of the public sector offering.

Instead they cut costs but do nothing to actually reduce the stretch of the state - but there is no real vision. For example, the Tories claimed to get rid of a load of "quangos", but the reality was, the work of the quangos was still carried out - just consolidated centrally.

The only thing they really target is cutting welfare - because that's an easy target.

The arms licences granted under Consevative governments have been worth £3-4bn so over the last 30-40 years it will have been considerably more.