UK admits to unpopularity of drone strikes, faces accusations of complicity

The British government has revealed that surveys carried out in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – which bear the brunt of US drone strikes – have shown year-on-year increases in opposition to the covert campaign.

Responding to a parliamentary question this week, Foreign Minister Alistair Burt said that according to surveys supported by the British Foreign Office, the proportion of respondents who believed drone strikes were “never justified” rose from 59 percent in 2010 to 63 percent in 2011.

Interestingly, 63 percent was also the proportion of Americans opposed to the president being allowed to carry out drone strikes inside the US targeting fellow citizens, according to a recent poll by Fox News.

This is the first time that the UK government has revealed it had carried out opinion research on the CIA drone campaign in Pakistan – a programme on which it has refused to comment.  Previously, British ministers have simply stated that drone strikes were a matter between the United States and Pakistan.

However, there have been reports that the British government is complicit in the programme by sharing location intelligence with US agencies to help them target the strikes.

As a result, British ministers are facing a judicial review of their intelligence-sharing policy, brought in the English courts by Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a March 2011 strike that hit a meeting of civilians. Khan is being supported by human rights charity Reprieve.

Reprieve Legal Director Kat Craig said, “The UK should not need to carry out polling to determine that a campaign of illegal killing is wrong.  But what this does show is that even British government surveys find that the drone campaign is increasingly unpopular.

“This is yet more evidence that the CIA’s campaign of deadly strikes in Pakistan is deeply counter-productive – which is hardly surprising, given it has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians.  Ministers must come clean on the role UK intelligence is playing in supporting drone strikes, put a stop to it and pressure the US to end its campaign.”