Britain’s arms-export regime has long been contentious. For decades, successive governments have licensed weapons to countries accused of grave human-rights abuses, while insisting that Britain’s controls are the most “robust” in the world. Few appointments could test that claim more sharply than the promotion of Peter Kyle to Secretary of State for Business and Trade.
Kyle is no ordinary minister. As Vice-Chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), he has been among the most loyal advocates for Britain’s alliance with Israel in Parliament. Appointed to that role in 2020 (it is not clear if he has stepped down since) he is now the man who must decide whether British components end up in the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces, whose bombardment of Gaza has prompted allegations of war crimes and calls from more than 600 British lawyers, including former Supreme Court justices, for a total embargo.
The Labour MP for Hove and Portslade has a record that consistently aligns with pro-Israel positions: he accepted a £1,400 donation from LFI, voted to designate Palestine Action a terrorist organisation, and has repeatedly declined to sign parliamentary letters calling for sanctions on Israel, upholding ICC arrest warrants, or suspending arms sales. He abstained or was absent on key votes over banning Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) laws (a nonviolent, Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel) and on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The optics of this appointment from Sir Keir Starmer are difficult.
Britain has licensed more than £448m of arms to Israel since 2015, from aircraft parts to electronic systems. Many of these find their way into American-built F-35 fighter jets, which have been central to Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Under British law, such exports should be blocked if there is a clear risk of them being used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law. Yet despite the mounting civilian toll, licences have continued to flow.
Kyle’s own record hardly reassures sceptics. In June 2025 he reportedly referred one of his constituents to the police after she sent him emails protesting against arms sales to Israel. Within days, four officers raided her home at four in the morning, arrested her, and confiscated her devices. Journalists who examined her emails found them to be angry but not abusive, passionate but not unlawful. For civil-liberties campaigners, the case smacked of an MP unwilling to tolerate dissent on an issue where he is deeply invested.
Now that same MP sits atop the system that determines the legality and morality of Britain’s arms exports. Human-rights groups fear that his sympathies will tilt an already permissive regime further towards business as usual. Labour, which once promised a more ethical foreign policy, has so far resisted calls to suspend all arms to Israel.
Kyle’s elevation almost ensures that will not change.
Concerns about impartiality at the Department for Business and Trade extend beyond Kyle. As Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) has previously highlighted, the department’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Julia Sutcliffe, spent nearly 15 years at BAE Systems before joining government last year. BAE is Britain’s largest arms company and a supplier of components used by Israel. DBT insists she has “no role” in licensing decisions, but has declined to say whether she retains shares or pension entitlements, or whether she advises ministers on broader policy. The lack of clarity also fuels suspicions of conflicts of interest at the heart of Britain’s export machine.
Britain’s export controls are meant to uphold international law and guard against complicity in atrocities. Putting an avowed ally of Israel in charge of them, while leaving unanswered questions about senior officials’ links to the arms industry, risks turning that system into a rubber stamp, irregardless of the human cost.
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