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Even we in the Socialist Party can admire Nicola Sturgeon’s
spirited condemnation of the Trident Missile Programme and agree with her that
it should be scrapped. However, in her emotional speech for the bairns and not
the bombs she failed to chastise the rest of the arms trade that her government
actually fosters and nurtures as the profitable part of the Scottish economy. This
blog has already reported on the Glasgow Council pension scheme investing tens
of millions in the weapons industry. What's the link between Edinburgh and
drones, or Ayrshire and the teargas turned on democracy protesters in the
Middle East? What does Dundee have to do with the repression in Bahrain? You
guessed. Scottish companies are making cash from supplying weapons. The arms
trade is a deadly, corrupt business. It is responsible for supporting, and
profiting from conflict. Its customer base largely consists of human rights
abusing regimes all over the globe.
In 2013 weapon manufacturers worth £1.8billion and employs
almost 13,000 people and 30 Scottish arms trading companies attended that year’s
showpiece arms fair the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI),
which is heavily subsidized by the UK government.
Many of the biggest firms are marine companies which are
involved primarily in naval defence. BAE Systems in Glasgow builds warships including
the Type 45 destroyers. Rosyth-based Babcock Marine is helping to build the
UK’s new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers. Some of the companies in
Scotland are domestic while others are outposts of international firms such as
QinetiQ, Raytheon, Thales and Finmeccanica.
Finmeccanica is the world’s eighth
largest defence contractor and is part-owned by the Italian government. Its
subsidiary, Selex Galileo in Edinburgh, is heavily involved in high-tech aviation
research for the Eurofighter, SAAB Vixen and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The
Campaign Against Arms Trade (Scotland) say that Finmeccanica has supplied
drones to Pakistan, howitzers to Nigeria and helicopters to Algeria, Libya and
Turkey.
