The UK hosts a major international arms fair
July 2026
The UK is an enthusiastic supporter of the arms trade, organising a fair at Farnborough ever other year in Hampshire. A thousand firms will attend and the ‘strategic sponsor’ is Barclays. It is curious to note in passing that the bank was founded by two Quakers and their early history was supporting Quaker businesses in the New World. Now they are supporting weapons firms. One of their values is ‘[being] passionate about leaving things better than we found them‘. One wonders what someone who has had a weapon dropped on them or a limb blown off feels about this value?
The firms themselves supply weapons to a range of conflicts around the world including the genocide in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. Some of UK weapons find their way to Sudan via the UAE one of our largest customers. Our old friends Elbit Systems are in evidence as well as Rafael, Israel’s largest missile maker.
Government support
The fair depends crucially on British government support which includes a dedicated arms sales unit in government, organisation of the fair, providing insurance cover in case firms do not get paid and finally, ready access to ministers and civil servants through what is called the ‘revolving door’. This is the highly dubious process by which ex ministers, former civil servants and ex military officers secure lucrative consultancy work or directorships with the firms to help lobby for their activities.
The insurance is provided by Exports Credit Guarantees and the amount may surprise readers. A total of 20 countries have defaulted on payments: some you might expect like Iraq, Cuba and Serbia because of conflicts, but others include Pakistan, Egypt and Argentina. The total is just under £3 trillion which is added to the national debt. It is worth pondering this for a moment because one of the hotly disputed political debates at present is over the welfare bill and some politicians and pundits are arguing for it to be cut to enable tax cuts. The quite staggering level of funding support for arms companies is never mentioned by these same politicians. Three trillion is £3,000, 0000, 000, 000. This figure may be an underestimate because the report makes clear some data has been lost.
Discovering quite what is being exported is not easy. The government likes to claim it has a robust arms sales policy but the facts seem to suggest otherwise. One has only to look at the countries to which we sell to see that ‘robust’ is not a word one would use. It issues what are called Standard Individual Export Licences [SIEL] of which there were 10,400 in 2025. The problem is approximately half of sales are under ‘open license’ making the reporting unreliable.
Ministers cannot always be trusted. David Lammy MP said in parliament that sales to Israel were being reduced once the destruction of Gaza became too great to ignore. Later analysis of Israel’s import data showed sales by the UK had in fact increased.
When we speak of arms sales, the photographs often show fighter jets, missile systems and other items of large scale military kit. We must not overlook that it is the millions of small weapons such as rifles, machine guns, grenades and so forth which cause so much damage to ordinary people. It is these weapons which kill and maim especially women and children.
Our continued support for the likes of Elbit Systems who make the drones which have killed many and made the lives of the people of Gaza such a misery, is shaming. Huge efforts have been made to stamp down on protests and hundreds of protestors have been arrested and gaoled.
There will be much glad-handing at Farnborough and no doubt a minister will speak about the contribution to our economy and jobs created. But we cannot escape the plain fact that this is an industry who’s products are designed to kill people. It could be argued that we need to defend ourselves and our partners in NATO for example. While that may be true, firms are busy supplying weapons to unstable, undemocratic and often brutal regimes who are using them to inflict misery on millions of people. Few questions are asked and the notion of a ‘robust regime’ is for the birds. The revolving door is alive and well – a process so steeped in corruption it is astonishing it has survived so long.
Sources: CAAT, SIPRI (Sweden), MoD, Barclays Bank, Salisbury CND
Picture: Dorset Eye
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 
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