A former Foreign Office adviser has revealed politicians’ naked “complicity with war crimes” and “a systemic effort to suppress inconvenient truths” about UK allies. In the end, he resigned over ongoing arms sales to Israel during its genocide in Gaza. But now, he has called on former colleagues to refuse to ‘rubber-stamp the whitewashing’.
‘Shielding allies and allowing the most egregious crimes’
Mark Smith is a former policy adviser for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). And as he wrote in the Guardian:
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.
He resigned in August 2024 after “over a year of internal lobbying and whistleblowing” regarding the “UK government’s refusal to halt arms sales to Israel amid the bombardment of Gaza”. And he claimed:
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.
He believes that the conduct he witnessed:
crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes.
He added that:
systemic dysfunction enables the government to perpetuate harm while shielding itself from scrutiny.
Systematically downplaying and suppressing “inconvenient truths”
His role at the Foreign Office was to give “neutral, evidence-based advice” regarding the cessation of arms sales wherever “there is a “clear risk” that weapons could be used to commit serious violations of international law”. But he saw ministers put pressure on officials “to skew the legal assessment”, giving “instructions to “rebalance” the findings – to downplay evidence of civilian harm and emphasise diplomatic efforts, regardless of the facts”. Some of these instructions were verbal as to “avoid creating a written record that could be subject to freedom of information requests or legal scrutiny”.
In short, he stressed, there was “a systemic effort to suppress inconvenient truths” about the war crimes of UK allies. This was not only regarding Israel, but also Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, where the government was also “fully aware” of the “massive civilian casualties” and that “the UK had exceeded the threshold for halting arms sales”. In this case, he said:
Rather than confronting the illegality, officials resorted to delaying tactics – extending reporting deadlines and demanding additional information that was unnecessary. This “wait for more evidence” approach created a loophole, allowing arms sales to continue while the government feigned compliance.
But with the genocide in Gaza, Smith’s concerns increased.
“Nothing short of a scandal” at the Foreign Office
During the genocide, Smith was “serving as a diplomat in Dublin, where Ireland’s staunch support for Palestine put me in an uncomfortable position”. He couldn’t “in good conscience” justify Britain’s policies, but:
When I raised questions with the FCDO about the legal basis for our arms sales to Israel, I was met with hostility and stonewalling.
Officials and lawyers even told him not to leave a paper trail. For him:
The Foreign Office’s handling of these issues is nothing short of a scandal. Officials are bullied into silence. Processes are manipulated to produce politically convenient outcomes. Whistleblowers are stonewalled, isolated and ignored. And all the while, the UK government continues to arm regimes that commit atrocities, hiding behind legal loopholes and public relations spin.
He explained his attempts to follow “internal procedure” when raising his concerns. But he simply faced:
delays, obfuscation and outright refusal to engage.
Now, with US president Donald Trump publicly advocating for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Smith had a message for others working in government:
I call on my former colleagues – those who still believe in the values of integrity and justice – to refuse to be complicit. Do not rubber-stamp reports that whitewash crimes against humanity. This is not self-defence – it is collective punishment. It is genocide.
Featured image via the Canary
