Mark Smith writes:

My name is Mark Smith. I am a former diplomat and policy adviser at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). I spent my career working in the Middle East directorate and serving in the Arab world. As a lead officer on arms sales policy, I was responsible for assessing whether the UK government’s arms sales adhered to legal and ethical standards under domestic and international law.

In August 2024, I resigned over the UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza. This decision followed over a year of internal lobbying and whistleblowing. My resignation made headlines, and weeks later, the new Labour government announced it would finally suspend arms sales to Israel. While this was welcome, it came far too late. Israel has continued to commit atrocities in Gaza as the UK stands by, unwilling to act.

My time at the FCDO exposed how ministers can manipulate legal frameworks to shield “friendly” nations from accountability. They stall, distort and obscure official processes to create a facade of legitimacy, while allowing the most egregious crimes against humanity to take place. Now, as the US – one of our closest allies – proposes the full-scale ethnic cleansing of Gaza, what will our response be?

What I witnessed was not just moral failure but conduct that I believe crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes. The British public deserves to know how these decisions are made behind closed doors – and how systemic dysfunction enables the government to perpetuate harm while shielding itself from scrutiny.

As a lead adviser on arms sales policy, my role was to gather information on the conduct of foreign governments involved in military campaigns, particularly regarding civilian casualties and adherence to international humanitarian law. This information formed the basis of reports that advised ministers on whether continued arms sales were lawful.

The UK’s legal framework is clear: arms sales must cease if there is a “clear risk” that weapons could be used to commit serious violations of international law. Civil servants are bound by a strict code of impartiality, requiring us to produce neutral, evidence-based advice. Any attempt to alter or manipulate this advice for political convenience is not just unethical – it is unlawful.

However, during my tenure, I witnessed senior officials under intense pressure from ministers to skew the legal assessment. Reports were repeatedly returned to me with instructions to “rebalance” the findings – to downplay evidence of civilian harm and emphasise diplomatic efforts, regardless of the facts. I was often summoned for verbal instructions – a tactic deliberately employed to avoid creating a written record that could be subject to freedom of information requests or legal scrutiny.

In one instance, a senior official bluntly told me, “This looks really bad,” before urging me to “Make it look less stark.” My protests were ignored. Significant edits were made to my reports, shifting the focus away from credible evidence of war crimes to paint a misleading picture of “progress” by foreign governments. This was not an isolated case – it was part of a systemic effort to suppress inconvenient truths.

The most concerning example of this manipulation occurred during my work on arms sales to Saudi Arabia amid its military campaign in Yemen. [Continue reading…]