The Government’s Defence Industrial Strategy launched by Defence Secretary, John Healey, states ‘National security is the foundation for growth’. Whilst Healey presents this strategy as a response to a much more unstable and insecure world, in fact it is Britain’s escalatory role across the world that is driving this very instability.
Speaking at a London Defence Conference event on Monday – which included arms trade investors – Healey said he wanted to increase military-industrial jobs in “every nation and region of the UK” and promised “a decade of national renewal.” The event was paired with job and investment announcements from several British arms companies, many of which are involved in Britain’s nuclear weapons industry or selling weapons to Israel for its genocide in Gaza.
Not surprisingly, British arms companies and their shareholders are in line for a major boost. The announcement came the same day as new data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) revealed that profits were skyrocketing at global arms companies. The figures, which account for revenues in 2023 also noted that Britain’s “Atomic Weapons Establishment, which designs, manufactures and maintains nuclear warheads, recorded the largest year-on-year percentage increase in arms revenues (+16 per cent) among UK companies in the Top 100, to reach $2.2 billion.”
But as this 2023 report by the think tank Common Wealth notes, increased government spending to arms companies amounted to “corporate welfare,” as billions of pounds paid by the taxpayer were siphoned off into shareholder profits. For instance, the report states that “BAE Systems, the UK’s prime supplier, paid out £7.4 billion to its shareholders between 2012/13 and 2021/22. Over this period, it received 21 per cent of its global revenue from MOD contracts worth £36 billion.”
Responding to Monday’s announcement from the Defence Secretary, CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:
“This has nothing to do with national security. More nuclear warheads can’t help local people who have lost their homes to severe flooding. Using public finances to ensure BAE shareholders get huge profits does nothing to boost Britain’s economy or create new jobs. This strategy is all about supporting the US-led war drive, which threatens the whole planet. Instead the government should be working with trade unions to invest in green jobs and diversification away from militarism to develop the massive scale of sustainable energy and energy-saving initiatives that are needed to tackle the climate crisis.”
Image credit: Keir Starmer / X
