It is hard to keep up with Palestine Action, who have carried out over 35 actions since our last issue. The following is an incomplete list of their actions, mostly targeted at the British subsidiary of the giant Israeli weapons maker Elbit Systems.
On 9 June, around 20 branches of Barclays bank across England and Scotland had their windows shattered or painted with red paint in a joint campaign between Palestine Action and Shut the System, a new climate direct action group.
…
On 26 June, a group of peace activists in Southampton blockaded the entrance to the Leonardo factory in the Millbrook Industrial Park, near the docks. The entrance was closed for an hour before police arrived and forced an end to the protest. Campaigners say the factory ‘produces parts for missiles very likely being used by the IDF to commit atrocities in Gaza, Palestine and the wider region’. Leonardo UK is a subsidiary of a major Italian arms manufacturer.
In mid 2023, Cymdeithas y Cymod (CyC, the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Cymru) and CND Cymru (CND C, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Cymru), worked in partnership with other leading peace organisations to create Heddwch ar Waith (HarW), Peace Action Wales, a campaign network. The project received funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust last summer.
HarW was established as a forum for the peace movement in Cymru, enabling groups to collaborate with…
MM: ‘Alain, in your book Démilitariser la France (Demilitarising France), you indicate that France is the fifth most militarised country in the world. Can you outline some particularly significant elements of this militarisation?
AR: ‘France has the particularity of having a long tradition of militarist symbols. To begin with, there is our national anthem: La Marseillaise, which is a war song. Then there is the 14 July military parade in Paris. There is also…
On 5 and 6 March, Bristol PSC and Bristol Stop the War blockaded the Future Indirect Fires arms fair at the Ashton Gate stadium.
‘This was inspired by the double-standard around violence, not just in Israel’s occupation and destruction of Palestine, but also in the “monopoly of violence” that is held by states, police, militaries, and intelligence agencies, which allows politicians and commentators to claim that “violence is never the answer” when referring to a regular person defending themselves against a police attack, punching a Nazi in the street, or pushing a cream pie into a politician or CEO’s face; but which…
At Gallery 46, a carefully renovated Georgian house in Whitechapel, curator Zayna Al-Saleh has gathered big names in art activism such as Vivienne Westwood, Gavin Turk, Adam Broomberg and Jeremy Deller.
Far from street protest, where Art the Arms Fair has its roots, some pieces are expected to fetch tens of thousands of pounds at auction.
Just as the DSEI arms fair four miles away offers luxurious hospitality to its corporate and military clients, this exhibition comments, with…
I first joined Women in Black (WiB) after the pandemic when people were still cautious about gathering.
Every Wednesday, we stand for an hour at the foot of the Edith Cavell statue in Central London. The passers-by are tourists, school trips, commuters in suits, daredevil cyclists, people dressed-up for a night out, theatre-goers, street homeless.
A few, usually men, react strongly to our standing there, apparently affronted by our call for an end to militarism and war.
…
In August, there were over 20 arrests at Volkel airbase in the southern Netherlands, home to 15 US nuclear bombs.
On 8 August, 10 climate activists and peace activists were arrested after climbing over the fence and protesting on the runway.
On 9 August, 15 protestors were arrested after picking up pink spades with the intention of digging under the fence, to create a more accessible route to protest inside the base.
The arrested, all released the same day, came from…
Nine peace activists were arrested on ‘No Faith in War Day’, on 7 September, in front of the the ExCeL Centre in East London, where preparations were being made for the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms exhibition and conference, Europe’s biggest arms fair.
Earlier, several hundred people had attended a Quaker meeting for worship, followed by an Anglican service and, later, a Pax Christi liturgy of resistance, at one of the gates to the ExCeL Centre. People…
The Global Campaign on Military Spending UK has a comment on the UK budget. Since last autumn, the military got a 3.7 percent uplift, greater than any other department: www.tinyurl.com/peacenews4024
This summer, peace activists from the War Resisters International global network will travel from across the world to London to take part in WRI’s ‘Antimilitarist Roots’ conference in mid-June.
If you live in London and are able to offer an activist from abroad some sleeping space and access to bathroom facilities for a few nights, that would be very welcome!
The ‘Antimilitarist Roots’ public conference is 16 – 18 June and WRI will also have a internal gathering as well on 15,…
On 18 March, about 30 people attended a Stop the Arms Fair (STAF) organising meeting in Friends House in Central London to build the campaign to resist DSEI, the heinous Defence and Security Equipment International arms fair that will take place in East London in September.
CAAT stepped back from organising around the DSEI protests after 2019, to concentrate on supporting protest at all other UK arms fairs.
Now STAF need more organisations and groups to get involved and think…
Universities across the UK draw millions of pounds of revenue from arms-trade-sponsored research, sometimes with explicit weapon-development research aims. Universities turn to the arms industry to make quick profits from consultancy work, while arms companies use universities as a base for recruitment and PR. British universities also have funds – sometimes tens of millions of pounds – invested in arms companies either directly or indirectly through fund managers and banks.
This is…
Despite pleading from defence secretary Ben Wallace, there was no increase in British military spending in the government’s November budget (officially an ‘autumn statement’).
Wallace, a popular Conservative MP, had previously warned that he would resign if the government did not commit itself to increasing military spending to three percent of GDP. (British spending has been at the NATO target of two percent of GDP.)
Chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt instead said on 17…
