Arms trade

1 February 2024News

New solidarity group takes action in Bournemouth, Brighton, Blackburn and Glasgow

On 7 December, a new Palestine solidarity group, Workers for a Free Palestine, organised 1,000 trade unionists and other protesters to blockade four sites connected to the Israeli war machine: Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth, Dorset; the L3Harris factory in Brighton, East Sussex; BAE Systems’s Samlesbury Aerodrome just outside Blackburn in Lancashire; and the BAE Systems Govan site in Glasgow.

All four arms company sites are linked to the manufacture of the F-35 warplane…

1 February 2024News

Spray paint action at International Armoured Vehicles fair

On 22 January, Richmond and Kingston Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Kingston Peace Council and other campaigners protested outside the International Armoured Vehicles arms fair at the Twickenham rugby stadium in West London. Arms companies present included BAE Systems and Leonardo and two Israeli firms: Elbit Systems and Rafael. Palestine Action had sprayed part of the stadium front in blood red paint earlier in the day.
 

1 February 2024Feature

How one British business could stop Israeli jets bombing Gaza

Rishi Sunak’s government has supported Israel’s criminal war on Gaza, both diplomatically and in practical terms: weapons including spare parts, surveillance missions and intelligence gathering through US spy bases hosted by the UK on Cyprus.

A War on Want report in December called for a ‘two-way arms embargo on Israel without delay to end [the government’s] complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.’

Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director of Human Rights Watch,…

1 December 2023News

Direct action group launches 'underground manual' amidst flurry of ongoing actions

Over the last two months, Palestine Action (PA) has continued its direct action campaign against Elbit Systems UK, the British subsidiary of the Israeli drone manufacturer. PA has also opened up a US branch (which has taken action in Massachussetts and New Hampshire), supported several activists on trial (still ongoing at the time of going to press) and taken action in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

On 5 October, PA added to its acquittals score when one of its activists was…

1 October 2023Review

Gallery 46, 46 Ashfield St, London E1 2AJ, 11 – 17 September

At Gallery 46, a carefully renovated Georgian house in Whitechapel, curator Zayna Al-Saleh has gathered big names in art activism such as Vivienne Westwood, Gavin Turk, Adam Broomberg and Jeremy Deller.

Far from street protest, where Art the Arms Fair has its roots, some pieces are expected to fetch tens of thousands of pounds at auction.

Just as the DSEI arms fair four miles away offers luxurious hospitality to its corporate and military clients, this exhibition comments, with…

1 October 2023News

Freedom of Information requests reveal Israeli embassy has been lobbying the UK attorney general’s office over prosecutions in the UK

The direct action group Palestine Action (PA) has won its first acquittals. On 30 August, a judge at Walsall magistrates court found Iola Davies, 73, and Jasmine Murphy, 23, not guilty of highway obstruction despite the fact that they had locked-on to vehicles blocking entrances to the UAV Engines factory in Shenstone.

PA has a long-running campaign of disruption against British weapons factories owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems. UAV Engines, which is owned by Elbit…

1 October 2023News

Nine arrested on "No Faith in War" day

Nine peace activists were arrested on ‘No Faith in War Day’, on 7 September, in front of the the ExCeL Centre in East London, where preparations were being made for the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms exhibition and conference, Europe’s biggest arms fair.

Earlier, several hundred people had attended a Quaker meeting for worship, followed by an Anglican service and, later, a Pax Christi liturgy of resistance, at one of the gates to the ExCeL Centre. People…

1 August 2023News

Campaigners block sewage pipes at arms factory

The direct action group Palestine Action (PA) has seven prisoners to support (there was a day of action for them on 22 July) and at least eight trials going on, but PA is still keeping up its campaign of disruption against British weapons factories owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems.

PA’s ‘siege’ of the UAV Tactical Systems factory in Leicester which began on 1 May was still continuing at the time of writing. UAV is owned by Elbit.

On 9 July, in a new tactic, PA…

1 June 2023News

Call to end arm sales following election crackdown

Widespread repression and fraud in the recent Turkish elections shows arms sales to Turkey must be immediately suspended. There is no democracy when president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan controls the media, where opposition parties are not only not given equal air time or coverage, but journalists covering alternate perspectives are persecuted and jailed.

There is no democracy when there is intimidation at polling stations, and there is no democracy when women cannot campaign freely for…

1 June 2023News

40+ arrested in 'mass siege' of drone factory

There have been dozens of arrests of Palestine Action (PA) activists since our last report.

At least 41 people have been arrested as part of the group’s main action in May, a mass ‘siege’ of UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester. The company is owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems. The siege started on 1 May and was continuing as PN went to press.

In another case, four PA activists are waiting to be sentenced after a seven-week trial at Wolverhampton crown court which…

1 June 2023News in Brief

After falling for two years, British arms sales using Single Individual Export Licences (SIELs) more than doubled to £8.5 billion in 2022, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) revealed on 16 May. Over half of these exports were for countries rated ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye.

The government only reports values for SIELs. CAAT estimates that slightly over half of UK arms exports are conducted more secretively using ‘open’ licences, which…

2 April 2023News

Europe's biggest arms fair is coming

On 18 March, about 30 people attended a Stop the Arms Fair (STAF) organising meeting in Friends House in Central London to build the campaign to resist DSEI, the heinous Defence and Security Equipment International arms fair that will take place in East London in September.

CAAT stepped back from organising around the DSEI protests after 2019, to concentrate on supporting protest at all other UK arms fairs.

Now STAF need more organisations and groups to get involved and think…

1 February 2023Feature

Liam Doherty reports on the students challenging arms-trade sponsored research at UK universities

Universities across the UK draw millions of pounds of revenue from arms-trade-sponsored research, sometimes with explicit weapon-development research aims. Universities turn to the arms industry to make quick profits from consultancy work, while arms companies use universities as a base for recruitment and PR. British universities also have funds – sometimes tens of millions of pounds – invested in arms companies either directly or indirectly through fund managers and banks.

This is…

1 February 2023News

Campaign targeting arms to Israel still going strong

Palestine Action (PA) has kept up a hectic pace recently in terms of court dates, and has also carried on its campaign of property damage against British arms firms supplying the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).

PA, founded in July 2020, has branched out from its focus on Elbit UK, the British subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, which supplies military drones to the IDF for use against Palestinians.

For example, on 19 January campaigners in Scotland…

1 February 2023News

British weapons, advisers and diplomatic support have contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths

After eight years of war, the people of Yemen are enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Oxfam says that ‘24 million people – 80 percent of Yemen’s population – need emergency aid, the greatest number in any country in the world.’

A quarter of the population is malnourished.

There were some signs of hope in January; a new truce may be agreed soon between the Saudi-led coalition and their Houthi opponents.

However, according to one study, there have been…