Stop The London Arms Fair: On Wednesday 6th September 2017 I was with protesters who were blocking the two roads leading to the Excel Centre on the side of the Royal Victoria Dock in Custom House, Newham.
Every two years the DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International exhibition takes place at the Excel Centre. This is the world’s largest arms fair, backed by the UK government , where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes. The previous show in 2015 was found to be featuring numerous weapons prohibited under international laws.
The show has been condemned by the Mayor of London, Newham Council and the people who live in this area of East London, but still goes on. It came to the Excel Centre in 2001 and there have been protests against it since then, organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and many other groups.
Wikipedia quotes London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2019: “London is a global city, which is home to individuals who have fled conflict and suffered as a consequence of arms and weapons like those exhibited at DSEI. In order to represent Londoners’ interests, I will take any opportunity available to prevent this event from taking place at the Royal Docks in future years.” Unfortunately he has had no success, and the 2025 show is already being advertised.
CAAT point out that among those official military and security delegations coming to the show are many from human rights abusing regimes including Egypt, the UAE, Democratic Republic of Congo. Arms sales to Saudi Arabia taking a major role in the war in Yemen by UK firms have been £1.9billion since the start of 2021, and overall sales to the coalition since the start of the war in 2015 have been around £18 billion.
Again Wikipeda states that “Amnesty International has criticised the event for selling weapons of torture and for providing weapons that have been traced to attacks on civilians.” You can still see their page on the 2015 arms fair, including a video . And in 2021 they found a company at the fair offering “waist chains and cuffs with leg cuffs“.
Protests at the Excel Centre in 2017 had begun on Monday 4th September when a protest camp was set up close to the Excel Centre. I’d gone there the following day to photograph ‘No Faith In War‘, a series of events organised by various faith groups.
I had returned on Wednesday 6th September when the protest theme was ‘Arms to Renewables – No to Nuclear‘ and there was music, singing, dancing, a free ‘bring and share’ picnic and a short theatrical performance urging that instead of arms industry and huge spending on Trident and on wars we should rather provide jobs in renewable energy technologies and spend the military budget on homes, schools, health and other social benefits.
During the day their were a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL where lorries were arriving to set up the exhibition stands for arms companies. Over the six days of protests there were more than a hundred arrests – and in 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that four of those charged had a “lawful excuse” for their actions which were were “exercising their rights to free speech and assembly (under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights)”.
The Supreme Court ruled that “protestors can still have a defence to a charge of wilful obstruction of the highway, even where there is a deliberate obstruction that has a real impact on other road users.” But each case had to be judged on its merits and on whether the conviction was “a proportionate response to the defendants’ actions” which in this case it was not. It seems clear to me – if not to the judge concerned – that the draconian sentences passed recently on the M25 protesters were not proportionate, and that his refusal to allow them to explain the reasons for their taking action was unlawful.
There are details and photographs of some of the events at the 2017 protests on My London Diary, including those from my later visits on the Thursday and Saturday. All the pictures here are from Wednesday 6th September. The final event on the following Tuesday when the arms show opened was a procession organised by East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock.
Israeli Land Day Massacre & Afrin March – On Saturday 31st March 2018 two emergency protests in London condemned the cold-blooded shooting by the Israeli army of peaceful protesters near the separation wall in Gaza the previous day, Palestinian Land Day. The was also a march calling for an end to the invasion of Afrin by Turkey and al Qaeda-affiliated militias intended to destroy this peaceful state and eliminate the majority Kurdish population of the area.
Land Day protest against supporters of Israeli state – Oxford St
Protesters from the Revolutionary Communist Group have held regular protests outside the Marks and Spencer flagship store on Oxford Street for many years. They were met there this morning by others apalled by the news of the 17 unarmed Palestinian civilians shot dead by Israeli snipers.
Those murdered in cold blood were taking part in the first of a weekly series of marches, the ‘Great March of Return‘, beginning on Land Day, the anniversary of protests against the state confiscation of swathes of Palestinian land in Galilee in 1976 until Nakba Day on May 15, the anniversary of the expulsion of millions of Palestinians from their homes and villages in 1948.
The protesters went from M&S to protest outside other stores on Oxford St with business links with apartheid Israel, calling for shoppers to boycott them. While I was with them they also protested outside Selfridges, which sells Israeli wines, Adidas which supports the Israel football team, Boots which sells cosmetics made in Israel and Carphone Warehouse and were continuing along the street when I had to leave.
Turkey’s attack on Afrin in north-west Syria is a clear violation of international law, and air strikes have deliberately targeted civilian areas.
Turkey has NATO’s second largest army and much of its weapons come from European states including the UK which had recently signed a major arms deal. The UK government has expressed support for Turkey, claiming it has a right to defend it borders, but this attack is outside these and Turkey has clearly announce an intention to push far into Syria.
Turkish aims are clearly genocidal with Turkish president Erdogan having stated he intends to invade all the Kurdish areas of Syria and “cleanse” the area of its Kurdish people.
As well as calling for an immediate ceasefire and end to the Turkish invasion of Syrian and UK support for this, they called for an end of UK arms sales to all human rights abusing regimes in the Middle East and for humanitarian relief for Afrin and other areas of Syria and for an investigation into human rights abuses there. They also called on the UK government to demand Turkey return the body of YPJ volunteer Anna Campbell to her family in Sussex.
I joined others close to the Israeli embassy in Kensington for an emergency protest against the shooting of unarmed protesters several hundred yards from the Gaza separation wall by IDF snipers. 17 Civilians were killed and over 750 seriously injured by live fire, with others injured by rubber bullets and tear gas.
The massacre the previous day had shocked the world and led the UN to call for an independent investigation, which Israel have refused – just as they have refused calls for independent investigation into other massacres. The news had come too late for a large protest to be organised – which followed in April.
Coverage of the event in the UK media on the day had been surprisingly muted, with the BBC giving considerable air-time to Israeli state speakers shamefully claiming the massacre was reasonable and fully justified. The same thing has been happening over events in Gaza in recent months, though I think it has now become very much clearer that they have lost all credibility and even some presenters have sometimes challenged them.
Arms Trade Die-In at Parliament: On Thursday 12th September 2013 Campaign Against Arms Trade brought their protests against the DSEi arms fair then taking place in East London to Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.
Their protest and die-in opposite Parliament was much more visible than those out in the fairly deserted streets of East London where the arms fair takes place at the ExCel Centre on the north side of the Royal Victoria Dock.
There the protest is directed against those taking part in the arms fair, both the exhibitors who are coming to sell their deadly weapons and those arriving to view and buy them.
They came to Westminster as MPs were arriving to take part in a debate on the role of United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI), including its controversial Defence & Security Organisation (DSO), the government’s arms sales promotion unit.
The DSO sends out official invitations to the arms fair to 67 countries including many of the worlds most repressive regimes. Those on the invitation list included Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Libya, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Arms sold at the arms fair in East London would inevitably fuel the civil war taking place in Syria and other armed conflicts around the world. The was in Yemen began the year following this arms fair, and Saudi Arabia has used weapons bought in East London in its fight against the Houthis there.
Also taking part in the protest were a number of campaigners from Bahrain where weapons sold at DSEi in Newham have been used to repress internal dissent.
Among the MPs who visited the highly visual protest was Jeremy Corbyn who stopped to speak briefly on his way to take part in the Parliamentary debate. He praised the protesters for their protests today and for their continuing events to stop the DSEi arms fair.
Arms Fair, Chile & Syria – On Wednesday 11th September 2013 protests were continuing against the DSEi Arms Fair, with East London Against Arms Fair floating a wreath on the dock in Front of the ExCel Centre and protesters still occupying a camp at the East Gate. But it was also the 40th anniversary of the US backed coup in Chile, rather now overshadowed by later the 9/11 events, and Stop The War protested at the US Embassy against any military intervention in Syria.
Wreath for Victims of London Arms Fair – Royal Victoria Dock
Protesters met at Royal Victoria Station for a procession around the Royal Victoria Dock organised by East London Against Arms Fair (ELAAF) to commemorate all those who will be killed by the weapons being sold at the DSEi arms fair taking place in the ExCel Centre on the dock, as well as those sold there at previous DSEi arms fairs.
The procession walked around the dockside led by a woman dressed in black carrying a white floral wreath with the message ‘REMEMBER VICTIMS OF THE ARMS TRADE.’
Following here people marched behind the ELAAF banner with its dove of peace. Also there to record the procession were a class from the local primary school, many of whom took photographs on their tablets and interviewed some of those taking part.
As well as ELAAF members there were also two Buddhist monks and some of the activists who have been occupying the roundabout at the East gate of the Arms Fair at ExCel since Sunday.
When the procession neared the end of the dockside path opposite the ExCel Centre it stopped and after a song against the arms fair the wreath was placed on the water in the dock.
As it floated away they held a two minute silence in memory of those killed by the arms from deals made at the previous fairs and those who will die from the weapons being sold at this DSEi fair. The event ended with another anti-war song, after which everyone dispersed.
Occupation at DSEi Arms Fair Continues – Eastern Gateway Roundabout
Protesters were still occupying the roundabout at the eastern gate of the DSEi arms fair in East London, with around a dozen sleeping there most nights, and more visiting during the day.
Some protesters had been arrested earlier in the day after blocking the entrance to the arms fair for a short time.
While I was there the protesters were handing out leaflets to the few pedestrians who left by the eastern gate, and showing posters and banners to vehicles, including several coaches that were taking visitors from the ExCel centre.
9/11 Protest at US Embassy – US Embassy, Grosvenor Square
The date 9/11, though confusing for those of us who put day and month in a more logical order was etched into our memories in 2001. For those who launched the attacks it was probably the anniversary of the defeat of the armies of Islam at Vienna in 1643.
But in terms of rather more recent American history, September 11th 2013 was the 40th anniversary of the CIA-backed military coup in which the Chilean military, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power from the democratically elected government and murdered Chile’s President Salvador Allende to set up a US-backed military dictatorship.
It was the Chilean anniversary that brought protesters to the US Embassy to demand that the US should not attack Syria, though the embassy flag was at half-mast for the 2001 twin towers attack.
DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival: Saturday 9th September 2017 was a busy day for protests at the two road entrances to the ExCeL centre where preparations were being made for the worlds’s largest arms fair, DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International, backed by the UK government where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes.
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate
Several hundred people had turned up in the morning for a festival day at the East gate for a programme of speakers, workshops, spoken word, choirs and groups.
People crowded onto the road when lorries arrived to enter with equipment for the show, but police moved them to the side to allow the lorries to continue into the Excel Centre.
By lunchtime things at the West gate seemed to be fairly quiet and a ‘critical mass’ group of cyclists were on their way to the East gate and I decided to take the DLR and meet them there.
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
I arrived at the West gate just as police were leading away Chaplin look-alike mime protester Charlie X who had locked himself to a lorry. He told me had made the mistake of having the keys with him in a pocket which made their job a little easier.
A supporter handed him a flower and police gave him back his walking stick before leading him away under arrest to a police van.
Although I kept well out of the way of the police while taking these pictures, some of them don’t appreciate being photographed and I got pushed out of the way – but not before I had taken a series of pictures.
The critical mass cyclists were standing on the roundabout at the entrance to the site and police noticed that one of them had his bike lock around his neck. They talked with him and he told them he needed to lock his bike if he left it anywhere to prevent it being stolen. Probably all the cyclists had locks with them for the same reason, but police decided to arrest him for carrying a lock. Almost certainly this was the stupidest arrest of the day.
Other people held posters against the arms fair, danced to music and a choir sang. I decided to return to the East gate.
DSEI East Gate blocked
Back at the East Gate I found the road blocked by a lock-in, with two people joined through a pipe which the police were struggling to remove. The couple were surrounded by a large group of police blocking my view but I managed to take a few pictures between their legs.
Other protesters sat on the blocked road as police hammered into the concrete around the linked arms of the locked pair, slowly and patiently removing it to avoid injuries.
A group of Quakers led a religious service on the blocked road. Mounted police arrived to help with clearing the road and people were told they would be arrested if they didn’t move. There were several arrests with people led away to waiting police vans a short distance away, as well as the two who had locked themselves together who police eventually separated.
The lorry waiting behind the lock-on still could not move as a man was lying underneath its wheels. Police tried to handcuff him but took some time to manage to get his hands together.
Eventually he was carried away. The performances on the roadside continued with a crowd listening to poetry from Janine Booth, but others moved onto the road to block lorries. People danced on the other carriageway and the Strawberry Thieves choir sang though without their normal conductor who had already been arrested.
Police cleared most of the road, but there was still a ring of people with a placard ‘STOP SELLING ARMS TO SAUDI ARABIA’ and a guitar. They linked arms to make it difficult for police to remove them and were still there half an hour later when I had to leave. At the DLR station I could hear the sound of a musical protest on the walkway by East London Against Arms Fairs and went briefly to take a few pictures before my train arrived.
Reuters reported recently that the big oil companies are set to make a record profits of $200billion thanks to high oil and gas prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This follows the previous year in which BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total delivered huge returns to shareholders with dividends and share buybacks. Shell has already announced what others have described as an ‘obscene’ £32billion, leading to calls for a higher level of windfall tax. BP is making similar excessive amounts, its 2022 profits at £23billion more than double the previous year, yet it is also reducing its climate committments.
The oil companies are making these profits from their sales of oil and gas, still by far the largest parts of their business, and areas they are hoping to increase through further exploration and exploitation of these climate killing results. Fossil fuels remain the background of their business, and they remain dirty businesses operating with much greater concern for their profits than for the environment, making relatively small gestures to switch from polluting and carbon intensive fuels to greener alternatives.
Greenwashing is very much the name of their game both in direct publicity which magnifies their relatively small activities in renewables and in the sponsorship of cultural organisations and activities such as the special exhibition on Troy which was taking place at the British Museum in 2020.
BP’s logo, introduced in 2000 is a good example of greenwashing, replacing the older long established shield emblazoned with the letters BP. They apparently paid a huge amount to San Francisco’s Landor Associates for the new design. The new logo has a sun-like shape, with a white centre and radiating out from this yellow, light green and dark green petals, clearly an attempt to suggest their business was green and environmentally friendly. Far from the truth.
The gap between logo and reality became stark in 2010, when a huge quantity of oil spilled from their Deepwater Horizon drilling station in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill had terrible impacts on plants, birds and marine species, quite opposed to the eco-friendly message of their new logo, and Greenpeace took out a full-page advert in The Guardian to invite readers to design a more appropriate version – and you can see a gallery of some of the submissions on The Guardian web site.
The winner, by French designer Laurent Hunziker shows a black silhouette of a seabird dripping oil superimposed on the centre of the BP logo, the lower part on which the bird is standing also blacked out to represent oil in what Hunsiker described as looking “like a fatal sunset for us.”
On Saturday 8th February 2020, BP or not BP? together with other groups including Extinction Rebellion organised the biggest ever protest against BP sponsorship at the British Museum, then showing the BP-sponsored exhibition called Troy: Myth and Reality.
As the organisers stated, the name was “horribly appropriate: we’re sick of the oil industry using our arts and culture as a Trojan Horse to hide its deadly activities. BP’s sponsorship may look like a gift, but death and destruction are lurking inside. The oil giant wants to associate itself with this famous myth but in reality, just 75 miles from the site of ancient Troy, it recently completed an enormous gas pipeline in partnership with the repressive Turkish government, locking us into using more fossil fuels when we should be ditching them.”
They also point out that the Chair of Trustees of the British Museum ‘recently called climate change “the great issue of our time”. Yet the museum continues to support and promote BP, one of the corporations most responsible for the crisis.’
The protest included a large Trojan Horse which they brought into the museum courtyard, a group of protesters dressed as Greek Gods and ancient Greeks and the XR mime group usually referred to as the ‘Red Brigade’ who were in black for the event, the colour of ‘black gold’ crude oil.
Also inside the museum were number of workshops and performances by ‘BP or not BP’ including protests calling for the return of stolen artifacts including the Parthenon marbles, and an indigenous campaigner from Free West Papua spoke about BP’s collusion with the Indonesian regime in denying his people their freedom – this is just one of a number of countries around the world where BP sides with repressive governments.
I left the museum at the end of the main performance in the museum’s great hall along with most of the 1500 protesters, but a small group remained there overnight making a new exhibit for the museum using plaster casts of limbs.
Tomorrow, Monday 6th September 2021 sees the beginning of the protests against DSEI 2021 Arms Fair taking place at the Excel Centre in East London. Protests there will continue until 17th September, the final day of the arms fair.
I hope to be able to be there and photograph some of the protests, as I have in several previous years. The more dedicated activists will be staying at a protest camp close to the fair, but I will only visit the site for a few hours, making my way across London and then back home – a journey of roughly and hour and a half each way.
The Arms Fair is certainly one of the largest in the world, and attracts both buyers and sellers from many countries including some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Although the government claims to restrict the sale of British made weapons and equipment to some of the more reprehensible dictators, in practice these controls are ineffectual and somehow don’t seem to apply to some of our largest business clients.
These limited restrictions of course do not apply to those foreign nations and companies who have many stalls inside the fair and can do whatever business they like. In recent years this has been shown to include selling weapons that are outlawed by international agreements.
The protests are organised by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, CAAT, though many other groups also take part. You can find details of the events on their web site. The big day of action, Tank the Arms Fair, is on Tues 14th September, the first day of the fair.
The pictures here come from 2017, the last time I was able to photograph some of the protests. The fair – which the London Mayor and the local council have clearly stated their opposition – takes place every two years. I missed the 2019 protests as I was in Cumbria.
You will find much more about the protests and many more pictures from 2017 on My London Diary at these links:
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
At the end of the month that this protest tour took place, the UK government issued its UK Defence & Security Export Statistics for 2018. These revealed that UK arms sales in 2018 amounted to £14bn, making the UK the world’s second biggest arms exporters, with around half the sales of the USA. Britain had 19% – almost a fifth of global arms sales – well ahead in 2018 of competitors Russia at 14% and France with 9%.
Most UK sales are to the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE in particular purchasing large quantities of UK arms. Over the 10 year period covered by the report, the Middle East accounted for 60% of UK arms sales, though in 2018 it was around 77%. One factor in that increase was the war in Yemen.
According to CAAT (Campaign Against Arms Trade),
The UK has licensed over £4.7 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the bombing began in March 2015.
The weapon categories include approximately: £2.7 billion worth of ML10 licences (Aircraft, helicopters, drones) £1.9 billion worth of ML4 licences (Grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures)
UK weapons used in Yemen include Typhoon and Tornado aircraft and ALARM missiles from BAE systems, Paveway bombs from Raytheon, PGM500 bombs and Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles from MBDA as well as UK-made cluster bombs which were exported from the UK in the 1980s. There are more details about the companies currently exporting arms to Saudi Arabia on the CAAT site.
As well as protesting, CAAT took the government to court over British-made arms being used in Yemen, and on 20th June 2019 the Court of Appeal ruled that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen was unlawful. The government are fighting this decision, taking it to the Supreme Court but had to apologise in September for “inadvertantly” breaking the ban over two export licences.
I joined the tour late after being held up by overcrowding led to a slow queue to get into the tube station and then down to the platforms due to Pride, and the crowds around Lower Regent Street made it impossible for the tour to visit the offices of Lockheed Martin. But I was present for the visits to G4S, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems, as well as for the speeches about Lockheed Martin – with each company being presented with a ‘blue plaque’ for their sins.
The highlight of the tour was the stop outside Buckingham Palace, where the plaque (complete with spelling mistake) was simply for their support of King Hamad in his violent repression of the people of Bahrain. But in the speeches we heard how the Royal Family played an important role with their visits backing arms sales around the world. Prince Andrew has been in the news recently for other reasons, but here was singled out for his services, in arms sales to corrupt regimes. Since it wasn’t possible to approach Buckingham Palace more closely, the blue plaque for the palace was left on the Victoria Monument facing it.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
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