?Batting for Britain?: British arms sales in the Thatcher years

Abstract

The Scott Inquiry into “arms-to-Iraq” was in many ways a fitting epitaph on the arms sales policy pursued by the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher from 1979–1990. As the Scott Report clearly showed, the Thatcher governments favoured a highly permissive approach to arms sales. It was an approach which invigorated the British arms export industry, but at the same time invited controversy and was not without cost. This article examines some of the methods, controversies and costs of the Thatcher governments' arms sales drive.