Black Lives Matter
London CAAT have been exploring how we can show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and also help them in their call for justice for all black people and to create a world free of anti-Blackness. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade in the US have led to massive protests there and globally. But this is not solely an American problem and the UK has it’s own issues with structural racism. Since 1969, just one police officer has been convicted for their role in the death of someone in their care. Black people are more than four times more likely to die of Covid-19 than the white British population.
CAAT have produced some fantastic resources that outline the UK’s role in the crackdown on US protests, what individuals can do to help and how groups can support the movement. Their blog posts covering this are here and here. There has also been coverage of the UK’s exports of tear gas, rubber bullets and riot shields to the US. Since 2010 the UK has licensed £2 million worth of security and para-military police goods to the US police and £18 million worth of ammunition sales to the US military and police, including crowd control ammunition, CS hand grenades, and tear gas. The USA is the second biggest buyer of UK arms in the world. CAAT also has an action where you can tell your MP to demand an end to licensing crowd control equipment to the US.
London CAAT will continue to explore how best to support the Black Lives Matter movement as we want to show proper support to the movement and not take action without considering how we can support the movement on a long term basis and as best we can help to bring about the structural change needed in this country.
Arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the Supreme Court
It’s one year since CAAT’s amazing victory in the Court of Appeal that ruled UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia were illegal. That means the export of new weapons for use in the war in Yemen have been stopped and a multi-billion pound deal to sell more fighter jets to Saudi Arabia remains on hold. Unfortunately the government is appealing to the Supreme Court for a final decision, with the hearing scheduled for 23-25 November. Shockingly, the government has not complied with the ruling that it should retake its previous decisions to allow weapons sales, and it is continuing to supply the war in Yemen. All the opposition parties have called for urgent action – read more about this here. Please sign CAAT’s petition to the International Trade Secretary demanding an end to the arms sales now.
Our meetings
Our meetings are still taking place online so if you want to attend a meeting, please send an email to londoncaat at riseup.net and we will send you details. The meetings are the third Tuesday of every month at 6.30pm.
CAAT are also organising online panel events and reading groups on July 9th and 16th onwards – you can read more about these here.