Fantastic news just in: campaigners have chased an arms fair out of their city – again!
Arms dealers interrupted, again! Arms dealers arriving for a £200/dinner in London last month found the doors blocked and protesters exposing the deadly impact of their work.
The DPRTE arms fair was moved to Birmingham after energetic protest and objections from locals drove it out of Cardiff …
… Now the threat of protest in Birmingham has forced the event to move before it even opens!
The announcement came after the new Birmingham Stop the Arms Fair group had planned a day of creative actions against the event.
Organisers told campaigners that the decision was made following consideration of “the impact of all events on all our guests.”
It will now move to a new location, inside the security fences of Farnborough Airport.
Well done to everyone who is taking action to show that the arms trade is not a legitimate business and is not welcome in our communities!
- In January, the UK arms industry gathered in London for a £200/head dinner to celebrate its ‘achievements’ – dining out on the profits it has made from the bombing and starvation of Yemen. But campaigners were there to expose the deadly impact of this trade, blocking entrances and forcing senior arms industry executives to queue around the block.
- Last year campaigners across Scotland worked to shut down the Undersea Defence Technology arms fair in Glasgow. 500 activists protested outside, with actions throughout the event persuading Glasgow City Council to promise it would never host another arms fair again.
- This latest success means that DPRTE has now been driven out of three cities: Bristol (in 2014), Cardiff, and now Birmingham!
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Arms trade not welcome in London -
or Cardiff… -
Scottish campaigners evict the arms trade -
Protesters in Farnborough in 2018
As Hugh Douglas from Birmingham Stop the Arms Fair said: “The government might be willing to ignore the death and destruction caused by the arms industry, but local people are not.”
Are you inspired by this success? Do you want to get skilled up and help build our movement against arms fairs?
Join us at It Starts Here on the weekend of 9-10 March, when hundreds of us will come together in London to learn, make links, get inspired and plan more action.
