While British ministers claim China is an increasing threat to UK interests, they have approved the sale of £2.6bn worth of military and dual civilian/military equipment to the country in the past three years. The exports will likely benefit China’s navy and airforce — as the UK government laments the rise of Chinese military power.
The recently published diaries of former foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan provide an unprecedented window into the influence the Israeli government and affiliated pro-Israel lobby groups have over the UK Foreign Office.
British officials did not consider the environmental impact of a new naval base in the Indian Ocean, despite evidence it will have ‘large adverse’ consequences for a species of whale ‘at high risk of extinction’, Declassified has found.
The new head of MI6 says his agency will monitor other countries’ climate commitments, but the UK’s intelligence agencies are refusing to provide any information on their own environmental footprint.
As Oman’s UK-trained police confront popular protests against unemployment and corruption in the dictatorial Gulf state, the British military prepares to deploy an aircraft carrier to a new UK naval base in Oman, and the head of the Royal Air Force praises his Omani counterpart.
The public inquiry into the 2017 Manchester terrorist attack shows no sign of investigating the UK’s covert role in the Libya war of 2011 — in which the Manchester bomber had fought. He is one of four terrorists from that conflict who went on to slaughter 63 people, mainly Britons, in separate attacks — and they may even have received military training from UK-allied forces.
While the UK government has been backing Israel’s intense bombing campaign in Gaza, Declassified can reveal that a third of cabinet ministers and the foreign minister responsible for the Middle East, have been courted by the Israeli government or pro-Israel lobby groups.
British aid projects supporting Palestinian security forces appear to be as much about helping to stop threats to Israel, the occupying power, as they are about enhancing Palestinian state-building.
As violence escalates in Israel and Palestine, we take readers through the expanding military relationship between the UK and Israel, which has been erased by the British media. The deepening alliance involves UK military training of Israel for combat, joint exercises, arms deals, as well as intelligence cooperation.
Declassified visited villages in Nigeria ruined by indiscriminate air strikes, which killed civilians, levelled marketplaces and hit a school — months after we revealed Nigerian air force pilots were secretly training in the UK.