According to the Independent, Vince Cable is under pressure over some export licenses that were issued by his department in January 2012.
The licenses were for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride. both of which can be used to manufacture sarin gas, which we now know was used in the chemical attacks in Syria. But further down the article we can read that:
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July in response to tightened European Union sanctions.
A spokesman said:
The exporter and recipient company demonstrated that the chemicals were for a legitimate civilian end-use – which was for metal finishing of aluminium profiles used in making aluminium showers and aluminium window frames.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Latest PollBase is out, with all the British voting intention polls since the 1930s
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
A remarkable politician
Well done Planting Up Sunniside
Reform UK councillor was 'pen pal' of top Al Qaeda terrorist who masterminded 9/11
Peter Martin
Peter Hirst
David Evans
13 Comments
This whole story is ridiculously misleading. These chemicals are about as much “nerve gas precursors” as a bunch of industrial tubing. They’re neither specifically required to make Sarin (which can be made from a whole number of different precursors, these aren’t even the most likely) nor specific to making Sarin (instead they’re widely used industrial chemicals with many purposes). There might be question marks over whether sanctions should have been introduced earlier but that is all.
Jack
I must differ with you – this is the most likely mechanism to introduce F into the molecule and Sarin can be made in different ways but the most straightforward route will use these compounds. Are you a chemist, if so can you tell me what else you would use to make it instead of KF or NaF?
They have been on the CWC list for years – I have had to sign waivers for their use.
They are fairly common compounds but not very widely used although they are not specific to Sarin
There are not many suppliers of them as their own manufacture can be tricky – F is not a nice element to work with – and the suppliers should be well aware of the regulations.
As Syria is not a signatory of the CWC and known to possess sarin I would expect the regulations to be rigorously applied and I am surprised an export licence was granted
This is an absurd story, and even the Labour party mostly realises that now. Sodium fluoride is an ingredient in toothpaste and water flouridation. Can you imagine the outcry if it had been banned? “The Coalition are condemning a generation of Syrian children to have no teeth”.
Mboy
Would be interesting to see the breaksown of NaF and KF.
The former is much cheaper and more widely used than the latter.
If doing inorganic fluoride chemistry then the latter is more useful and I would be more suspicious of intent if they ordered a lot of KF.
The Government has now responded to the allegations:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23924259
MBoy – you have missed a key element in the story! Out in the world of green ink, headed notepaper, tinfoil hats and lurid websites, the involvement of the legendarily eeevul chemical fluorine (AKA fluoride, flouride and quite probably fluorite amongst its many other popular synonyms, you know, that deadly poisonous industrial-waste byproduct chemical that the UN tyranny is making everyone drink), is being taken as evidence of how dangerous this gas stuff must be! The anti-fluoridation cult don’t let opportunities like this slip by quietly.
On first hearing, it did seem to me that the story being picked up from the Indy boiled down to a rather unimpressive “Chemicals! Scary! Nasty coalition get money from giving bad stuff to foreigners! Blame Vince!” Sodium and potassium fluoride are such simple compounds that I would have expected them to have a number of legitimate if specialised uses, so would genuinely be interested if brcombie could expand on the facts of the matter from an industrial chemistry perspective.
Well done the EU.
Although the chemicals can be used for innocent purposes they are also used in the manufacture of nerve agents.
The post above about outrage if we’d denied Syrian children toothpaste is rather disingenuous.
Squirrel Nutkin
Fluorine is becoming more useful in industry and a lot of new pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals contain it.
It may look simple on paper but its nature makes it difficult to handle. F- is very corrosive and attacks glass and most metals so it has to be nahdled carefully.
The main point is that whilst NaF has many uses outside chemical manufaturing, KF has less as it is very prone to turning to cement due to it being hygroscopic and it is more expensive. It is however a better fluoridating agent than NaF and so is used frequently for synthesis.
If they have ordered lots of KF I would be more suspicious, especially given Syria’s approach to the CWC
Sarin will probably use KF for the fluorination
brcrombie – much appreciated! Decades after my chemistry degree one of the more random bits I remember is the unusually troublesome nature of hydrofluoric acid (not storable in glassware!), but that was more as a brief example of the consequences of extreme electronegativity than as a lead into any practical applications.
I am a chemist and I use these chemicals everyday. They are salts – I use NaF to brush my teeth.
I also use NaCl everyday. I put it on my chips. It is commonly known as table salt.
Excuse me company name please….
Well, it’s good to know that we sell lots of toothpaste to Syria!
No evidence that any of the chemicals were used to produce a Nerve Agent. Sarin is relatively easy to make; the Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo produced and released Sarin . Syria has long been believed to hold substantial stocks of chemical weapons. Syria is one of only 7 states which are not party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Syria has been a refuge for Nazis on the run – the Nazis developed Sarin.