Category Archives: war

Warsi was right to link UKIP with the BNP

Posted on by symonhill

Sayeeda Warsi, co-chair of the Conservative Party, was last night brave enough to note a link between the BNP and UKIP. She pointed out that UKIP candidates are standing in areas where the BNP had previously stood, implying that they can draw on the same sort of support.

She triggered a storm of anger, including an abusive Twitter message from a leading member of UKIP (who thus made himself sound more like a far-right thug, rather than less), for which he later apologised.

Warsi was right to make the point. I hope she will not back down. All she has done is to state the obvious: two parties on the same end of the British political spectrum may well attract sympathy from the same voters.

She could go further. Two years ago, ahead of the last general election, I wrote an article comparing the stated policies of the BNP and UKIP. I found even more similarities than I had expected.

It is true that UKIP do not share the BNP’s obsession with ethnicity, and this is important. It is also true that the BNP are more statist and that UKIP are basically ultra-Thatcherite in economic terms. In other areas, their policies are very, very similar.

They are both strongly anti-immigration, anti-European, anti-multicultural and pro-military spending. They both deny the reality of climate change. Like totalitarian regimes, they both want to make laws about what people are allowed to wear in public (by banning niqabs). They both make comments on the niqab and on multiculturalism that whip up fear and prejudice against Muslims. They both want biased history teaching that portrays the British Empire in a positive light (this is explicit in their policies).  They both support “workfare”. And they both want extreme, punitive approaches to law and order.

It’s not that Warsi went too far. She didn’t go far enough. Because one far-right party includes middle class ex-Tories with a polite manner, that doesn’t make it any more acceptable than the other one.

Fantasy and reality at BAE’s AGM

Posted on by symonhill

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the BAE Systems Annual General Meeting. Shareholders were today welcomed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, to be greeted by plush carpets, free coffee and glamorous posters featuring BAE staff saying how great it is to work for one of the world’s largest arms dealers (they don’t quite put it quite like that).

Afterwards, the AGM itself was underway, with presentations and displays about “total performance” and “a culture of responsible behaviour”. A brief film attempted to demonstrate the diversity of BAE’s staff (not reflected on the board of directors), with gender, age and ethnicity very varied. None of them mentioned what BAE really does. The worker on the film with a visible mobility impairment did not mention how much cheaper mobility equipment would be if those who produce it were to receive the same subsidies that go to arms companies.

After the AGM is over, a free lunch was provided, including a vegetarian option (for all those vegetarian arms dealers).

I attended the AGM today, as I do every year, as a BAE shareholder. Before you get worried about my buying shares in arms companies, I own only one share. Like many others, I own it so that I can turn up and hold the company to account for its arms sales, its corruption and its damage to Britain’s democracy and economy.

The BAE AGM seeks to give an image of the company that has nothing in common with reality. It is far removed from the streets of Bahrain, where peaceful demonstrators have been killed by a regime armed by BAE. It is very distant from Tanzania, where corruption led the government to buy BAE weapons they didn’t need, reducing funding to tackle poverty and provide healthcare. And it’s also several hundred miles south of Brough, where around 900 of BAE’s workers are facing redundancy as the company continues to find it more convenient to employ people overseas.

At least, it would be removed from all those things if the BAE bosses had their way. I have never seen BAE chair Dick Olver more flustered than he was today. He essentially lost control of the meeting, which broke down into heckling as he patronised workers from Brough, said he was “proud” to sell jets to Bahrain and refused to rule out arming the Saudi regime even if they used BAE’s weapons to suppress a peaceful uprising. He would not even make an apology to the Tanzanian people.

When it was suggested that arms dealers might have difficulty sleeping, he insisted “all members of BAE’s board sleep very well”.

What’s the point, I sometimes think? What’s the point of going along like this, year after year? It’s not as if we’re likely to change his mind. But there are two good practical reasons for doing so. Firstly, our questions often get reported in the media, which makes more people aware of the nature of BAE. Secondly, board members often say things that can be quoted in future debates and campaigns by those of us seeking to draw attention to the reality of their business.

Today, there was another good reason. The AGM was full of workers from Brough, facing redundancy. Dick Olver made some attempt to set the anti-arms activists and the Brough workers against each other. He suggested that Brough might have remained open had the company received more orders from Saudi Arabia – after the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) had attacked sales to the Saudi regime.

But this strategy didn’t work. The Brough workers and the anti-arms activists were soon cheering and applauding each other’s comments, particularly those about diversifying to work on renewable energy to move away from arms and keep jobs at Brough. Today, we were able to tell the workers at Brough that we’re on their side. Serious government investment in renewable energy – a far more stable prospect for the future than arms – would make use of engineering skills in Britain and could save lives in Bahrain.

This is the one day in the year when some of the most powerful arms dealers in the world have to listen to the voices of anyone who wants to challenge them. On the other 364 days, they can hide behind their bank accounts, security staff and PR departments. Not today. Today, they were confronted with reality.

For a detailed report on today’s BAE AGM, please see http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/16612. 

A day to speak up about dictator debt

Posted on by symonhill

The thirtieth anniversary of the Falklands War took a bizarre twist this week. It emerged that the UK is still demanding repayment from the Argentine government for money they borrowed in 1979 – with which they bought weapons to invade the Falklands.

Documents uncovered by the Jubilee Debt Campaign reveal that the Foreign Secretary at the time, David Owen, recognised the brutal nature of Argentina’s then military junta, but authorised the sale all the same.

Lending money to despots, and selling them weapons, has been a feature of UK government policy under Tory, Labour and coalition governments. When these dictatorships are replaced with more democratic forms of government, their countries are often weighed down with the inherited debt. When repayment is demanded, it’s the people, not the dictators, who lose out.

A shady government unit stands at the centre of this scandal. UK Export Finance – previously called the Export Credit Guarantee Department – is part of Vince Cable’s Department for Business. UK Export Finance has long backed projects supporting arms, aviation and fossil fuels. It has done business with some of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

UK Export Finance is still demanding millions for deals done with former dictators in Egypt, Indonesia, Argentina and Iraq.

In opposition, Vince Cable criticised the department and called for its debts to be audited. Now he is against this policy.

On Tuesday 17 April – the Global Day of Action on Military Spending – people concerned about this situation will stage a nonviolent protest outside the offices of the Department for Business,between 8.30 and 9.30am. The protest is organised by Jubilee Debt Campaign and the London group of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

The Department is on Victoria Street in London. To read more about the event on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/events/277426555670117. I hope to see you there!

Stonewall forget their radical roots (again)

Posted on by symonhill

Is there no limit to the number of exploitative and violent institutions that Stonewall is prepared to endorse? Having already made awards to the likes of Goldman Sachs and the Royal Navy, Stonewall yesterday gave prizes to Ernst & Young, Barclay’s and MI5 for their supposedly gay-friendly employment practices.

Stonewall describe themselves as “the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity” (although many bisexual people dispute the description, arguing that Stonewall’s overwhelming concern is with gay and lesbian people). I have no doubt that Stonewall genuinely do a lot of good work. They have played an important part in raising equality issues in the media and in Parliament, tackling homophobic bullying and working for changes in the law.

Sadly, however, their campaigns are hampered by their failure to link their struggle with other issues of equality and justice. Not only are they rather cosy with elements of the establishment, but by giving awards based on absurdly narrow criteria they imply that there is no link between working for LGB people’s rights and promoting equality and justice in other areas. Their awards condone and celebrate some of the most unethical organisations in the country.

It is, of course, a good thing for an organisation to treat LGB people the same as straight people in recruitment and employment. But Stonewall’s awards seem to take no account of whether an organisation is a good employer in other ways. It seems it’s OK for them to treat their staff appallingly, as long as they mistreat their straight staff as well as their LGB staff. The Royal Navy, like the other armed forces, is exempted by law from a great deal of employment legislation. Its employees may not join trades unions or leave after a reasonable notice period. Giving them an award for employment practices is as absurd as it is offensive.

Stonewall also seem unwilling to take account of the purpose and practices of the organisations they reward. Ernst & Young’s promotion of tax avoidance helps wealthy individuals and corporations to steal millions from the rest of us at a time when this money is desperately needed. Barclay’s perpetuate a banking system that ensures an unjust distribution of the world’s resources and helps to keep power in the hands of the rich.

The core purpose of the armed forces is to engage in acts of violence. Not all their members are directly violent, and many of them are decent, compassionate people when in other contexts. But we should not be naïve or ignore the reality. MI5 is an extension of the violent, hierarchical and secretive practices of militarism.

In strugglnig aganist homophobia, I suggest that it is important to recognise that heteronormativity has been used by capitalism – either consciously or unconsciously – as a means of control. It has been linked to very narrow understandings of “family” that encourage people to be loyal to their own group of people, rather than compassionate towards the whole of humanity.

Of course, it is quite legitimate that there should be different views about war and economics within movements for queer freedom. I do not expect everyone to agree with me. Ethical considerations are, by their nature, very complex and very messy. Nonetheless, it is is reasonable to expect that a group of people campaigning for equality in one area should consider equality in other areas. Stonewall have this week undermined their own message by deliberately ignoring this principle.

These dodgy practices go way beyond Fox and Werrity

Posted on by symonhill

It’s happened at last. Liam Fox, one of the most gung-ho militarists ever to occupy the post of Defence Secretary, has returned to the backbenches. All the excuses and half-truths his supporters could come up with have not saved him. But his departure will be largely pointless if we don’t learn a great deal from the Werrity scandal. When it comes to dodgy practices involving arms lobbyists and the Ministry of Defence, Adam Werrity is only the tip of the iceberg.

Adam Werrity appears to have lobbied Fox on behalf of arms-related companies without civil servants present. Whether the presence of civil servants would have made any difference is open to debate. The MoD’s tendency to lobby for the interests of arms dealers is now widely recognised. Labour’s shadow trade minister Wilf Stevenson (a member of the House of Lords) referred to it only last month, describing the situation as “bonkers”.

There is a revolving door between government and the arms trade, allowing a string of former ministers, civil servants and generals to retire to lucrative roles on the boards of arms companies. In 2006, multinational arms company BAE Systems used its influence on Tony Blair to ensure that they were effectively placed above the law, as Blair pressured the Serious Fraud Office into dropping a criminal investigation into BAE’s Saudi deals. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in his memoirs that the head of BAE had “the key to the garden door at Number Ten”.

On Sunday, it will be five years since I joined hundreds of other campaigners to surround the central London offices of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), a unit of the MoD that promoted private arms companies. In a blatant example of a conflict of interest, DESO’s boss received both a civil service salary and a “top-up” payment from the arms industry.

DESO’s closure was announced by Gordon Brown’s government in 2007, following a long-running campaign by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other groups. The arms industry reacted with fury. They lobbied to ensure that DESO’s replacement was only slightly weaker. DESO’s functions were transferred to UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of the Department for Business that promotes British exports. UKTI now employs more staff in its arms section than in all civil sections combined – even though arms make up only 1.5% of UK exports.

This resignation is not enough. We need an end to the sort of practices demonstrated by Liam Fox and Adam Werrity. We need a thoroughgoing, genuinely independent inquiry, not only into the MoD but into all government relations with the arms industry.

This is about power. It is widely understood that arms dealers are helping to suppress human rights around the world with their supply of weapons. It is vital to realise that they are also undermining democracy in Britain with their excessive and corrupting influence at the heart of government.

The parallel universe of David Cameron

Posted on by symonhill

Welcome to the parallel universe of David Cameron. It is a world in which the Tories stand up for the poor, lead the fight against dictatorship and stop people from being given benefits on demand. It is a world that exists in a conference hall in Manchester this week, in a few daily papers the rest of the time, and in the less well-informed parts of the right-wing blogosphere. It has nothing in common with the world that most of us live in.

The real story of David Cameron’s speech is the blunder that saw him removing his comments about credit card debt at the last minute. It appears to have taken his advisers a while to realise that being lectured on managing your personal finances by a multi-millionaire would not go down well with people struggling to make ends meet. Nor would the prospect of being told to give money to banks by politicians who have already bailed them out with billions of pounds of our money.

In terms of what Cameron did say, it is difficult to know where to start in pointing out the inaccuracies and half-truths. On at least one occasion, he told a straightforward lie. He said that people receiving disability benefits were ‘Not officially unemployed, but claiming welfare, no questions asked.’

What are these mythical benefits that are given to people without asking questions? My father was on disability benefits throughout the nineties. Many friends of mine have been on them since. All of them had not only to answer strings of questions but undergo tests and interviews, some of them ridiculously over-the-top, that in some cases made their health worse.

Cameron said, ‘Now we’re asking those questions’. He failed to mention that Atos, the company contracted to ‘ask the questions’ – and to re-assess people for ability to work – has done its job so badly that around 40% of appeals have been upheld. Atos’ approach makes clear that the government is interested in throwing as many people off benefits as possible.

Then there were Cameron’s comments on Gaddafi, for whose overthrow he appeared to take personal responsibility. The people of Libya might feel that they had something to do with it too. Cameron said that Labour were saying sorry for ‘sucking up to Gaddafi’ but nor for what ‘really’ mattered. The implication is that siding with Gaddafi is not a major problem. This would explain why Cameron’s government attempted to sell sniper rifles to the Gaddafi regime only weeks before the Libyan uprising began.

Cameron re-announced the government’s consultation on same-sex marriage. This was announced two weeks ago by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. Indeed, a consultation had already been announced and Featherstone was effectively confirming that it had been postponed. She promised legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage by 2015. Throwing people off benefits can be done overnight, but marriage equality apparently takes a minimum of four years.

The more I read of Cameron’s speech, the more sickened I felt. But none of it quite compared to a comment made yesterday by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary. He claimed that the Conservative Party are ‘the party of the poor’.

This is the party of the poll tax, privatisation, mass unemployment and the great social housing sell-off. This is the party that is now leading an assault on the working class and lower middle class with policies that lead to increased homelessness, fewer jobs, lower pensions, worse public services and the abolition of benefits vital to disabled people.

The Tory Party’s core purpose has never varied over the last three hundred years. It exists to promote the interests of the rich. I’m sure that the Conservative Party includes compassionate individuals who genuinely believe that they are working for the best interests of society as a whole. But as institution, this is not how the Tory Party has worked. The Tories have opposed every major progressive policy ever introduced, from old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the National Health Service in the 1940s, to the minimum wage fifty years later.

But Cameron and Duncan Smith are right about one thing: Labour is not the party of the poor. Labour presided over an increase in inequality. The ConDems are simply going further. Working class and lower middle class people are increasingly unrepresented by all three establishment parties. Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on these parties. Progressive political change does not start with politicians, but with ordinary people like us. It’s time to remember our own power.

The reality of BAE’s job cuts

Posted on by symonhill

I don’t claim to be an expert at making political predictions. Some of my predictions have been woefully off-course. But yesterday I made what must surely be the most precise political prediction of my life.

Speaking about the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, I was asked about the impact on jobs if the UK stopped exporting arms. I replied that even if arms exports are not reduced at all, arms industry jobs would gradually disappear from Britain, as companies such as BAE move employment to India and elsewhere. Later in the day, BAE confirmed nearly 3,000 job losses in the UK.

The redundancies are already being blamed on the government’s military cuts. The reality is that cuts to the military budget (or the “defence budget”, as its euphemistically known) have been relatively slight when compared to the coalition’s swingeing attacks on public services and the welfare state.

Furthermore, BAE have got form for being misleading about employment. When they signed a major deal with India last year, they said it would protect jobs at their Brough plant. Within months, they were announcing job losses at Brough. In 2006, when arms dealers were lobbying to end a criminal investigation into BAE, they claimed that the latest Saudi arms deal would provide 16,000 jobs in the UK (and both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph put the figure at 50,000). Once the deal was signed, BAE cynically announced that most of the jobs would be based in Saudi Arabia, with very few new jobs in the UK.

In this context, it would not be a surprise to hear an announcement from BAE pretty soon about the creation of new jobs in India or the USA. If this happens, it would be naive to think that this had no connection with the job losses in Britain.

There is no future in the arms industry. Apologists for the arms trade try to justify it by speaking of the number of jobs it creates (a tactic also used by supporters of the transatlantic slave trade over 200 years ago). In reality, the arms industry is subsidised with about £700million of taxpayers’ money every year. Future generations will look back in disbelief, unable to understand why, when faced with the horrors of climate change, we chose to throw millions into arms production. We could be using those millions, and the skills of thousands of British workers, to research and develop renewable energy and technologies that can help us to tackle the physical, economic and security threats resulting from climate change. Let’s start by retraining the workers that BAE have so callously thrown on the dole.

To read more on arms trade issues, please visit the Campaign Against Arms Trade website.

The Labour Party and the arms trade

Posted on by symonhill

Yesterday, I was pleased to be able to speak on the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool. The meeting was organised by the Christian Socialist Movement (CSM). The text of my talk was as follows (I deviated slightly from this text at times).  

It’s great to be here. Many thanks to the Christian Socialist Movement for hosting this event and many thanks to all of you for coming.  

I’m Symon Hill. I’m first and foremost an activist. I’m also associate director of the Christian thinktank Ekklesia. And I’m a member of the steering committee of the Campaign Against Arms Trade. I’m not a member of the Labour Party or the Christian Socialist Movement, although I am a Christian and a socialist. Those two words describe my approach to politics and to life.  

As a socialist and as a Christian, I believe that change is possible and that ordinary people like you and me can bring it about. I’m inspired by Jesus, who through his teachings and actions promoted a radical approach to human relationships with principles that we might now call equality and active nonviolence. I would not be a Christian if I did not believe that Jesus’ teachings were realistic. 

So let’s be real. Two weeks ago I was protesting outside the London arms fair. The government had invited some of the world’s most brutal regimes to meet arms dealers in east London. Earlier this year, ministers revoked arms exports licences to Bahrain after the Bahraini regime used its weapons against its own people. But despite this, a delegation from Bahrain was invited to turn up at the London arms fair. 

As many of us protested outside the arms fair, Liam Fox was making a speech inside. Fox told the arms dealers that he was “proud” of the UK’s arms industry – or the “defence industry” as he euphemistically calls it. Fox talked about how many jobs the arms industry provides.  

I would like to share a piece of advice that’s always helped me: Beware of Tories talking about jobs. Conservative ministers are not usually motivated by a desire to tackle unemployment. When they justify something by the jobs it provides, it’s time to be suspicious.  

So let’s look at some of the facts. 

Firstly, we have the physical effects of the arms trade. It is often argued that if people want to fight a war, they will find the means to do so. There is some truth in this. But it would be naïve to suggest that the arms industry is simply supplying a need. Violence begets violence. Violence also begets profits.

As the world watched with excitement a few months ago, the Arab Spring saw millions of amazingly brave and inspiring people standing up to tyranny. It quickly emerged that many of the regimes concerned had been supplied with weapons from the UK. When the Bahraini regime invited the Saudi army in to help suppress peaceful protest, the Saudi forces arrived with armoured vehicles made in Newcastle.

Furthermore, many of the people who die as a result of the arms trade are not killed directly with the weapons involved. Corruption is inherent in the arms trade. And as Hilary Benn has put it, “corruption kills”.

For example, the multinational arms company BAE Systems is alleged – and if there are any libel lawyers present, I hope that word will be sufficient – to have bribed Tanzanian officials to spend public money on equipment that the country clearly did not need. The money could have been spent tackling poverty or providing healthcare.

The economic effects of the arms trade are also bad for Britain. Have a look at UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of Vince Cable’s Department for Business. UKTI is responsible for promoting British exports. They devote more staff to the section promoting arms exports than to all civil sectors combined. But arms make up only 1.5% of UK exports.

Only about 0.2% of British jobs are dependent on arms exports. Every one of those people has a right to be considered. Nobody’s livelihood is irrelevant and I refuse to discuss any economic question without considering the people it will affect. I grew up in the eighties under Thatcher with my father on the dole. I know what unemployment does to people and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Apologists for the arms industry seem to have a much more more laid-back approach to unemployment. As controversy raged over BAE’s Saudi arms deals in 2006, BAE’s friends at the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph made increasingly wild statements about the number of jobs that would be created by the latest Saudi arms deal. The original suggestion had been 11,000 jobs across Europe. Soon, it was said there would be 16,000 jobs in Britain alone. This magically rose to 50,000 and the highest figure I saw was 100,000. Almost as soon as the deal was signed, BAE announced that most of the jobs would be based in Saudi Arabia, with few new jobs in the UK.

The arms industry receives around £700 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies every year. This is partly through the funding of research and development. Future generations will look back in amazement, unable to understand why, when faced with the threat of runaway climate change, we subsidised jobs in the arms industry instead of putting money into renewable energy and other technologies to tackle the environmental, economic and security threats that climate change is bringing.

Our economy is distorted by the arms industry. This is because our democracy is distorted by the arms industry. Sixteen years ago, I sat in Labour Party conference and heard Robin Cook promise that under a Labour government, there would be no arms sold to regimes that used them for internal repression or external aggression. I’m sure that many of you share my sadness that this change never came about. In his diaries, Robin Cook lays bare the grotesque influence wielded by the arms industry. He says that he never saw Tony Blair take a decision that would inconvenience BAE Systems.

The arms industry’s influence within government means that exports regulations are full of loopholes and worded so vaguely that they allowed Cameron’s government to attempt to sell sniper rifles to Gaddafi only months before the Libyan uprising. This influence means that the UK government can stand up at the United Nations and back an Arms Trade Treaty so flimsy that ministers have assured British arms companies that it will make no difference to them.

Many people, both within the Labour Party and beyond it, were inspired by Robin Cook’s commitment in 1995. We need a renewed commitment to ending arms exports to oppressive regimes. This cannot be done by regulations alone. A future Labour government, if truly committed to democracy, would need to reduce the power of the arms dealers by tackling the structures and cultures that give them so much influence. Robin Cook wrote in his diaries that the chairman of BAE Systems had “the key to the garden door at Number Ten”. We need to get the locks changed.

———

Many thanks to CSM and CAAT for inviting me to give this talk at their fringe meeting. The meeting was chaired by CSM’s director, Andy Flanagan. The other speakers were Wilf Stevenson (Shadow Trade Minister), Alan Storkey (Christian theologian and economist) and Helen Goodman (Shadow Justice Minister). Please click here for a news report on the event.

Tell someone about the arms fair today

Posted on by symonhill

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, however much time you’ve got, you can help to tackle the arms fair today. The most important thing you can do is simply to speak out by telling someone about the fair and why you oppose it

DSEi, one of the world’s biggest arms fairs opens in London this morning (13 September). If you’re in London, it would be great if you could make it along to any of the protests. They include both lawful demonstrations and civil disobedience; some will be calm, others will be more energetic; some are organised by Christian groups, others by secular ones. Whatever your personality, there should be something for you. See http://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk for a list of some of the actions.

If you’re unable to make it to the protests, you might want to email or phone your MP to ask him/her to speak out against the arms fair. You could protest and/or pray outside a local arms company.

You can also pray about the issue, asking God to strengthen those who are resisting the arms fair and turn the hearts of the arms dealers to repentance and love. We also need to ask God to forgive us all for our complicity in this evil trade, tolerating its presence in our midst. 

But perhaps the most important thing you can do is simply to mention the arms fair to someone. The arms dealers are hoping for a successful event – and for them that means relatively little public or media scrutiny. The arms industry doesn’t rely on public support, but rather on a lack of public discussion. 

So wherever you are today, mention the arms fair. Mention it to a friend or colleague, post a link on Facebook, talk about it in the pub. You can tell people that regimes such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have been invited to do arms deals in an area of London that was heavily affected by the blitz only 60 years ago. You can tell them that the government is using taxpayers’ money to subsidise a trade that provides only 1.5% of UK exports.  

Speaking out. It’s the nonviolent activist’s first weapon.

We can all speak out against the arms fair

Posted on by symonhill

On Tuesday (13 September), one of the world’s largest arms fairs will open in London. The London arms fair – known euphemistically as Defence & Security International (DSEi) – will see some of the world’s most vicious regimes and active warmongers send delegations to London to view arms and make deals.

UK-based companies, along with many others,  will be taking the opportunity to display their wares, in an era in which over 90% of all people killed in war are civilians.

The guest list for DSEi has yet to be published. In previous years, it has included representatives from Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, Bahrain and Gaddafi’s Libya.

Ministers’ support for the Arab Spring is about to ring hollow as regimes such as these again turn up at the Excel Centre in east London. They are likely to be addressed by the “Defence” Secretary, Liam Fox.

DSEi, which takes place every two years is now owned by Clarion Events (who also run the Baby Show). The previous owners, Reed Elsevier, sold the fair after a sustained campaign by their customers, their shareholders, members of the public and the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

DSEi is organised with political and financial support from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of Vince Cable’s Department for Business. UKTI devotes more staff to promoting arms exports than to all sectors promoting civil exports, even though arms make up only 1.5% of UK exports.

UKTI took over responsibility for promoting arms exports following the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), a unit of the Ministry of Defence that was a commonly seen as a lobbying channel for the arms industry. DESO closed following years of campaigning by CAAT, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other groups.

As the campaign successes with Reed Elsevier and DESO show, the arms dealers do not always have it all their own way. As the power of Clarion Events and UKTI illustrates, there is still a long way to go.

The first major protest is this afternoon. There will be a nonviolent demonstration outside the Royal Bank of Scotland, who are sponsoring a seminar for arms dealers to explore “opportunities” for arms sales in the Middle East. The seminar has been moved to a secret location to avoid campaigners. (See http://thefriend.org/article/a-secret-location).

Over the following week, there will be range of protests – whether you prefer a lawful march, civil disobedience, lobbying your MP or joining in street theatre, there will be a way to make your voice heard. Please see http://www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk for a list of planned events.

If you can’t make it to London, you can lobby your MP at home, write to your local paper, call a radio phone-in or protest outside a local arms factory.

And you can tell other people how outraged you are by the arms fair – this is often the most vital action.