The Opposition's spokesman on Foreign Affairs did a splendid job last night, of endorsing the 1965-2007 UK/Saudi deals while finding some grounds for procedural criticism. We risk moving into a "who governs" morass - lawyers, or our elected representatives trying to balance the ideal with the practical.
CAAT, wanting no truck with arms or with regimes unlike our own, follow CND, on through conshies and Quakers - all valiant, honest and estimable. All decent folk would prefer:
a) that the KSA was run rather like Surrey County Council. Well, they do it their own way, so that's that;
b) that all weapons could be binned. Well we will be at the bin right alongside (your preferred ogre), but till then we will talk softly but carry a big enough stick in self-defence.
In 1930s similar evangels wanted the League of Nations to outlaw not just bombing, but Air Power. 1936's Royal Commission on the Private Manufacture of and Trading in Arms was influenced by The Private Manufacture of Armaments by P.Noel-Baker. He saw he had encouraged Hitler and was Attlee's Sec.State for Air when we got into the Bomb business, trying to influence from inside the tent - and won the 1959 Nobel Peace Prize.
So, if we have the arrogance to believe we could/should try to improve the world, we must work, sweet reason, in partnership with leaders and their systems as they are. Blair/Goldsmith did that with unsavoury characters in Ulster. They did not indulge in unilateral gestures of no influence, save to open our jobs and security to infiltration.