Say no to the annual arms dealer dinner!
On January 27th, the UK arms trade will hold its annual fancy black tie dinner in central London. Arms dealers, MPs and military personnel will get together to network and dine on expensive food. They will feast while Gaza continues to starve and Israel even blocks tents entering Gaza. The arms companies attending have been supporting Israel’s genocide as well as supplying weapons used in other conflicts globally, such as Yemen. These awful companies fuel death, destruction and violence across the globe.
We are working on finding out the venue and will post the location on our social media (X and Facebook) as soon as we get it as well as updating our website and the Facebook event.
Join us from 6pm to oppose those profiting from and enabling war and let them know the depth of feeling against their deadly profession. Bring your placards, noise and passion to oppose this horrendous event.
We did a lot last year!
We challenged the evils of the arms trade in a variety of ways last year – please see below for a flavour of what we got up to.
First up was a boisterous protest against the arms dealer dinner (see above for this year’s protest). Arms dealers were challenged over their complicity in Israel’s genocide with chants, noisy drumming and placards that confronted them with the victims of their deadly trade.
Throughout the year we visited a number of arms companies complicit in Israel’s genocide of Gaza – Israel has violated the so-called ceasefire many times and continues to blockade vital supplies from entering. We visited Leonardo, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, L3Harris and Northrop Grumman, telling the passing public about each companies involvement in Israel’s atrocities, handing out leaflets and performing Palestinian poetry.
In March, we held our annual vigil to commemorate the start of the war on Yemen and stand in solidarity with the people of the country still suffering from the effects of Saudi Arabia’s brutal war on the country. We will hear from Ruth Rohde at Shadow World Investigations and played a heartfelt message from the Yemeni freelance journalist Ahmad Algohbary.
In June we joined Islington Palestine Solidarity Campaign to protest against Barclays funding of Israel’s genocide – the bank provides billions of pounds in loans and underwriting to arms companies, including those supplying the Israeli military. We marched through Islington and ended with a rally with speakers from CAAT, Culture Workers Against Genocide, London Mining Network, Islington Banks Better and others.
In August, we did a walking tour of arms companies that would be exhibiting at the DSEI arms fair the following month. We took a healthy crowd to Boeing, BAE Systems, UK Defence & Security Exports (the government body responsible for promoting UK arms exports) and L3 Harris, sharing information about their deadly weaponry, the impact it had globally and how the government supports their immoral business. We also created a piece of street theatre where “Benjamin Netanyahu”, “Keir Starmer” and an “arms dealer” had a meeting with Death. Check out a video of that here.
September saw excellent and sustained opposition to the heinous DSEI arms fair. In attendance were most of the biggest arms companies and official military delegations from around the world, including many that represent human rights abusing regimes and countries involved in conflict. There was a peace camp in the set up week before the fair started, themed days of action such as rethinking security, an all-faith no faith in war day, migrant justice and The Big One, a well organised blockade of the fair on its first day, among many other actions.
So another busy year for London CAAT and we will continue to oppose the arms trade this year. Thank you to anyone who came to meetings, attended demos or supported us in any way. Our meetings are online on the third Tuesday of every month at 6.30pm – please reply to this email if you want to get involved. You can also check out our Facebook and X to see what we are up to.