Many assume that UK-Saudi relationship are all about oil, but only 3% of UK oil imports come from Saudi Arabia.
Even in 2015-2016, a recent peak year for those sales, total exports of all goods and services to Saudi Arabia (military and non-military) made up just 1.3% of UK exports worldwide.
The real economic value of Saudi Arabia is the trade surplus Britain has with it, and its role as a major source of inward investment.
The common suggestion that Riyadh could easily import arms from elsewhere if the UK were to stop supplying them fundamentally misunderstands the nature of what the UK and US provide: complex, state-of-the-art weapons systems, together with ongoing support to sustain their use. This cannot simply be replaced by Russia or China overnight.
This is why Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former CIA analyst, said in 2016 that Washington and London could effectively pull the plug on the Saudis’ bombing of Yemen whenever they liked, since “the Royal Saudi Air Force cannot operate without American and British support”.
When ministers claim that counter-terrorism cooperation with Riyadh saves British lives, some retort that Saudi promotion of an extreme, minority form of Islam helps to create that threat in the first place.
A final myth is that we are supporting the “reformers”. The only “reforms” those regimes have ever been interested in are those that consolidate their wealth and power.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/government-says-britain-needs-to-trade-with-saudi-arabia-its-a-myth
Even in 2015-2016, a recent peak year for those sales, total exports of all goods and services to Saudi Arabia (military and non-military) made up just 1.3% of UK exports worldwide.
The real economic value of Saudi Arabia is the trade surplus Britain has with it, and its role as a major source of inward investment.
The common suggestion that Riyadh could easily import arms from elsewhere if the UK were to stop supplying them fundamentally misunderstands the nature of what the UK and US provide: complex, state-of-the-art weapons systems, together with ongoing support to sustain their use. This cannot simply be replaced by Russia or China overnight.
This is why Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former CIA analyst, said in 2016 that Washington and London could effectively pull the plug on the Saudis’ bombing of Yemen whenever they liked, since “the Royal Saudi Air Force cannot operate without American and British support”.
When ministers claim that counter-terrorism cooperation with Riyadh saves British lives, some retort that Saudi promotion of an extreme, minority form of Islam helps to create that threat in the first place.
A final myth is that we are supporting the “reformers”. The only “reforms” those regimes have ever been interested in are those that consolidate their wealth and power.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/government-says-britain-needs-to-trade-with-saudi-arabia-its-a-myth
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