Opposition to world’s largest arms fair will not stop British government’s support for lucrative trade

Protests will fall on deaf ears as UK makes billions from exports, Lizzie Dearden writes

More than 35,000 people are expected to attend the event this week (Lizzie Dearden)

Most people will not have heard of Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) or be aware of its appearance in London every two years. The world’s largest arms fair is an event for those “in the know”, namely weapons manufacturers, international militaries and delegations from governments including Saudi Arabia.

Organisers hail the “unrivalled scale” of the four-day fair held at London’s ExCeL centre, despite loud opposition from Sadiq Khan, the local authority and protesters who are arrested in their scores at every DSEI. More than 35,000 people are expected to attend this week, each one of them carefully vetted and searched before being allowed inside the cavernous conference centre to mingle with ministers and heads of the world’s largest militaries.

They will be greeted by a jarring spectacle, where suited delegations quaff free wine over cabinets full of ammunition. Meetings deciding multi-million pound weapons deals happen in the shadow of real tanks and helicopters. DSEI puts an unsettlingly corporate sheen on what is, in reality, a festival of killing machines, from guns to drones, jets, ballistic missiles, hand grenades, rocket launchers and mortars. In the event’s language, death is “defence”, weapons are “technology”, and countries accused of war crimes and human rights abuses are “strategic partners”.

Andrew Smith, of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, accused attendees of being “totally detached from the impact of the deals they are celebrating”. “The kind of weapons being promoted at DSEI have played a central role in atrocities throughout the world. But that human cost will go totally unacknowledged by the organisers,” he added. “The sales being negotiated next week will only strengthen the regimes and dictatorships in attendance and could be used in abuses for years to come.”

All of this could not happen without the British government’s support, which comes in the form of financial backing from the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Trade, and the supply of a roster of ministers to deliver speeches and mingle with foreign delegations. The government has invited Saudi Arabia to the event, despite the Court of Appeal ruling the sale of weapons used in the Yemen war unlawful, and protests have long fallen on deaf ears.

When The Independent visited the last DSEI in 2017, the then-defence secretary, Michael Fallon, suggested the UK would “spread its wings across the world” with increased arms and equipment exports after Brexit. “As we look, exiting the European Union, to go increasingly global, we see our equipment as a platform for even stronger partnership,” Mr Fallon told delegates, while hailing Britain as the world’s second-largest weapons exporter.

As hoped-for trade deals remain unsigned and the UK slides towards a no-deal Brexit, the government’s reliance on the arms economy looks likely to continue for many years to come.