Bloomsbury, London
On Shut DESO Action Day, Monday October 16 2006, protesters formed a human chain around the building housing the Defence Export Services Organisation close to the British Museum in Bloomsbury declaring it a Global Danger Zone.
In 1966 Denis Healey, Secretary of State for Defence in Harold Wilson’s Labour government founded the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) to help British arms manufactures export military equipment and services.
Since this protest in 2006 it has been rebranded several times, first as the Defence & Security Organisation, then UK Defence and Security Exports which is now a part of the Department for Business and Trade, in July 2026 itself rebranded as (now known as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), but throughout has remained much the same.
DESO and now UKDSE helps companies export arms and security equipment, organising exhibitions, providing serving soldiers to help demonstrate the use of weapons at these, organising trade missions, advising on government export finance, identifying export opportunities and even producing brochures advertising British arms. It trains companies on how to export military and ‘dual-use’ arms and security equipment legally despite our export controls. UKDSE is now run from inside the Ministry of Defence.
Here’s what I wrote back in 2006 – I’ve left out a sentence about a web site which is no longer in existence. You can find out more from the the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) which campaigns against the UK government’s active promotion of the arms industry including UK Defence and Security Exports (UKDSE).
The Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) spends £15 million a year of our taxes selling arms for British arms manufacturers, often to countries with poor human rights records or engaged in violent conflict. We contribute ten times as much to promoting arms sales than promoting civil exports. Always headed by an arms industry executive, DESO gives the arms manufacturers a unique influence over government policies.
On Monday 16 October, 2006, around 250 protesters, many dressed in white, made a human chain around the DESO HQ in Bloomsbury, just a few yards from the British Museum, and designated the department as a ‘Global Danger Zone’. From there, many went to lobby their MPs to close down DESO. Mark Thomas came and spoke to those demonstrating, adding his voice to those asking for DESO to be closed down – and making an offer of alternative employment for some of the staff.
The demonstration was organised by Campaign Against The Arms Trade and supported by other groups including the Fellowship Of Reconciliation, Speak, War On Want, CND, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party.
More pictures begin here on My London Diary.
After the protest I walked back to Waterloo Station across Waterloo Bridge.
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