Rupa Huq Ambushes Lord Cameron Over Arms for Israel

Urges Foreign Secretary to end sales from the UK

Lord Cameron (left) with Billy Vaughan and Rupa Huq during their encounter in Parliament

May 29, 2024

Rupa Huq took her chance to corner the Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron this week after encountering him in Parliament.

Normally MPs can’t directly question him as he sits in the Lords not the Commons but, the Ealing Central and Acton MP cornered him after bumping into him as she was leaving a roundtable event which was discussing suspending arms exports to Israel.

The event was attended by representatives from Human Rights Watch and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, alongside MPs and peers who were encouraged to use consistent cross-party messaging.

Lord Cameron was in Parliament appearing before the Lords International Relations and Defence Committee and Dr Huq was with Billy Vaughan, the public affairs officer at Quakers in Britain, when they saw the former Prime Minister. They both took advantage of this unexpected opportunity to lobby him on both arm sales and opposition to further Israeli military incursions into Gaza.

She said, “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to approach Foreign Secretary David Cameron to put various Gaza related questions to him - something MPs are usually not entitled to do as he is a Lord, but for me this is a priority.

“Over the past seven months that this war has raged I’ve questioned Rishi Sunak in public in Parliament as well as the Foreign Secretary on the Rafah invasion along with Billy Vaughan of the Quakers. I asked what we were doing to stop the imminent full scale Rafah incursion and why we could not question him which I believe to be a huge democratic deficit.

“In his usual smooth manner, he brushed Billy and me off informing us that he had just spent several hours before the House of Lords committee and that he had appeared at the Liaison Committee of MPs. However, none of these are open to backbench MPs like me.

“I will continue to relentlessly press the government on Rafah, against UK arms sales to Israel, for the resettlement of Gaza refugees, a massive injection of aid including restoration of funding to UNWRA and importantly the immediate ceasefire so badly needed. “

She was one of the 56 rebel Labour MPs who voted to back the motion for a ceasefire in November 2023 when it was first put to Parliament and has been actively campaigning for more humanitarian aid.

Billy Vaughan said, “It was good to get the opportunity to join Rupa Huq in holding the Foreign Secretary to account for his refusal to halt arms export licences to Israel.

“Quakers in Britain have joined other faith groups in calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to foreign military support for Israel. The global arms trade allows a small minority to profit from the killing and suffering of others, and nowhere is this more apparent right now than in Gaza.

“The UK has licenced £442 million worth of arms to Israel since 2015, and CAAT has even said that the real figure is significantly higher than this. Many of these arms are now being used to kill and maim civilians in Gaza.
“UN experts have described what is happening in Gaza as a genocide, and yet the government still refuses to publish its legal advice on whether Israel is committing war crimes.

“David Cameron has said that he is ‘not really interested in message sending’ but we will continue to send a message on behalf of the majority of the public who want weapons sales to Israel to end completely.”

Rupa Huq will cease to be an MP this Thursday (30 May) when Parliament is dissolved and will need to win a fourth consecutive victory on 4 July to retain her seat. She added, “I am pleased that since this awful cycle of violence started began with the Hamas attacks of October 7th Labour does now support a ceasefire in Gaza and though I’m depressed and dismayed at the Rafah incursions it is right that Keir Starmer has unequivocally said if he were PM he would tell Netanyahu to stop”.

Lord Cameron has said previously, “The U.K. provides less than 1% of Israel’s weapons and it’s not a state supplier.

“We have a licensing system and those licences can be closed if it’s judged there’s a serious risk of a serious international human rights violation.”