Mahra was just thirty-one years old when she was forced to seek refuge in a camp. A mother of four, and expecting a fifth, Mahra was one of 4.5 million people in Yemen displaced by the Saudi-led war, and one of 21 million people in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Conflict had compounded an already dire famine in a country ravaged by drought, causing widespread malnutrition.
One day, while fetching water, Mahra collapsed. With the help of United Nations–funded health care, Mahra survived. Her unborn child did not.
On Tuesday, MP after MP stood up in Parliament to defend the prime minister’s enormous annual increase in “defense spending.” Did any of them stop for a moment to think about what this actually means? Since 2015, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s combat aircraft used for the bombing raids were supplied by the UK. Over that period, British arms companies earned more than £6 billion in sales. Even before Britain started bombing Yemen directly in 2024, it was providing the weapons for a campaign that killed more than 150,000 people from military action and left hundreds of thousands more dead from disease and famine. This is the reality of “defense spending.”
The government has been widely criticized for cutting foreign aid to fund its increase in military spending, and rightly so. This decision will not just harm the victims of war, like those in Yemen, but will fuel the very conditions that lead to war in the first place. Eight in ten of the world’s poorest countries are suffering — or have recently suffered — from violent conflict. A grown-up approach to foreign policy would look at the underlying causes of war and alleviate them. This government is choosing to accelerate the cycle of insecurity and war instead.
It was only this month that the government published videos bragging about the deportation of “illegal” migrants, parroting right-wing attacks on asylum seekers. Now, by spending more on bombs…
Auteur: Jeremy Corbyn
