BRITAIN must cut off the flow of deadly weapons to blood-soaked Saudi Arabia, arms trade campaigners said yesterday after the kingdom admitted using British-made cluster bombs in its onslaught on Yemen.

Saudi use of the indiscriminate weapons is “characteristic of a brutal war and a brutal regime,” said Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

“If Saudi forces are prepared to use cluster bombs, then why is the UK continuing to arm and support the regime?” demanded CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted that this country has “very strict” arms export controls. They appear to be strict on paper, but are widely ignored in practice.

Despite the United States, Saudi Arabia’s main patron alongside Britain, reducing weapons supplies, Ms May has insisted on arming the Saudis despite the atrocities committed over the country’s southern border.

Saudi Arabia leads a multinational coalition aiming to restore the rule of Yemen’s ousted president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, following his overthrow by Houthi rebels.

Its bombing campaign has killed thousands of people, adding to a death toll that the United Nations said in August could have reached 10,000 since March 2015.

Despite the widely reported targeting of civilians, Britain has sold over £3.3 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since its campaign of terror began.

“Once a weapon has left these shores, there’s little if any control over where and when it will be used and who it will be used against,” Mr Smith pointed out.

That is particularly true in the case of the cluster bombs, which Britain last sold to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s.

Britain “must act now to stop the arms sales and to end its complicity in the humanitarian catastrophe that has been unleashed on the Yemeni people,” he urged.

Yet there is no sign of that from the government. Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood claimed on Monday that Britain and those nations currently bombing Yemen were committed to “a peaceful resolution” of the conflict.

He also called on “all parties to … help alleviate humanitarian suffering.”

Yet the Saudi bombing campaign, which is also assisted by British military advisers in the Saudi operations room, has vastly increased suffering in Yemen. Over half of its population is in danger of starving to death.