James O?Nions | ukwatch.net

Arms and the Government

Alex Doherty — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 23:45:29 +0000

It was with no apparent irony that Defence Secretary Denis Healy told Parliament in January 1966 While the Government attach[es] the highest importance to making progress in the field of arms control and disarmament, we must also take what practical steps we can to ensure that this country does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable commercial market. The comment was part of a speech in which Healy accepted in full the findings of the Stokes report, whose recommendations centred on the establishment of a small but very high-powered central arms sales organisation. This was also the beginning of a process that saw such an organisation established inside the Ministry of Defence.

*Arms sales unit*

Based on similar developments in the US under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the units aim was to provide sales support to UK arms companies, many of which were publicly owned at the time, to enable them to sell their products more effectively in the global market. The chairman of a military electronics firm, Racal, was seconded to head up the Defence Sales Organisation, as the unit became known, starting an unbroken tradition of arms company executives occupying the post. In 1985 the DSO became the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO) but in all other respects remained the same. Todays Head of Defence Export Services is Alan Garwood, previously Chief Operating Officer at missile manufacturer MBDA.

The arms industry considers DESO important enough to club together to supplement Garwoods senior civil servant wage with an undisclosed amount to bring him up to the earnings of an industry executive. Yet despite the complete privatisation of the arms industry since DESO was set up, Garwoods supplement is all that the arms industry pays towards what is essentially their very own taxpayer-funded marketing department. Whats more, no other industry is subsidised to such an extent. Relative to its share of total UK exports (which is less than 2 per cent), DESO receives thirteen times the budget of the government organisation which promotes civil exports, UK Trade and Investment.

*Government connections*

It isnt simply the fact that 500 civil servants work to promote their arms exports that makes DESO so valuable to the industry. In theory, an arms industry trade association like the Defence Manufacturers Association could raise and spend DESOs annual budget of £16 million on marketing itself. What they wouldnt get is the unique, and uniquely undemocratic, access to the heart of government that DESO provides.

Because DESO is a government body, its resources are not limited to the offices that it maintains in 18 countries worldwide. It is able to draw on the support of the military attachés that are located in around 82 UK embassies. By some estimates, military attachés and their support staff spend an average of a third of their time on arms sales, using diplomatic contacts which otherwise would not be available. In addition, DESOs London staff and its head have direct access not just to Defence Ministers but according to former Head of Defence Export Services Charles Masefield, directly to the Prime Minister.

Recent events have highlighted just what benefits arms companies garner from these links. In October this year, the Guardian reported that Tony Blair had visited DESO priority market Saudi Arabia to push £40bn worth of Eurofighter Typhoons on behalf of BAE Systems. With senior ministers helping DESO in their mission, it is little wonder that the organisation can boast on its website that successive Customer Satisfaction Surveys of the UK defence industry revealed that over 75 per cent of ...[arms exports] would not have been achieved without the assistance of DESO .

*Key markets*

DESOs strategic marketing plans also assist the arms companies. Whilst the UK remains prepared to sell arms to just about anyone, DESO does identify priority markets each year where it thinks the best opportunities for UK arms sales lie. The most recent available Strategic Market Analysis is for 2004 and lists 28 countries as key markets, ranging from rich countries such as Japan and Italy, to poorer ones such as Kazakhstan and India. DESOs overseas offices are opened and closed periodically as the emphasis shifts from one market to another. The organisation also attends strategically important international arms fairs. It spent £1m on its presence at 13 of these arms fairs in 2004 (see www.armsfairs.com for more information).

Two of the key markets, though, stand out from the rest, making up a premier league. Even before the possible Eurofighter deal came onto the horizon, repressive absolutist monarchy Saudi Arabia received so much of DESOs attention that the work of up to 200 of DESOs staff focuses on this country alone. The importance of Saudi Arabia dates back to the 1986 Al Yamamah deal, which was negotiated personally by Margaret Thatcher, and was followed in 1988 by an even bigger deal that established an arms-supplying relationship with Saudi Arabia for the forseeable future. It was, and remains, a de facto message of approval to a regime that Amnesty International says has a dire human rights situation.

The other country in DESOs premier league is the worlds foremost imperialist power, the USA. With its global military commitments, the US represents the biggest arms market in the world, a market into which DESO is clearly keen to get UK companies. BAE Systems, which now has several US subsidiaries, is in a good position to supply the Pentagon from inside US territory, but others export from the UK. In fact, in 2004, the US represented the biggest export market for UK-manufactured arms, with licences issued for goods on the military list worth £340 million, plus open (unvalued) licences constituting much more.

*Corporate welfare*

In the forty years since Healy established the DSO, both the UK and the arms trade have changed a lot. In the 60s and 70s, the DSO operated in a sector that was largely owned by the state and geared towards producing equipment for the UK armed forces. It sold second-hand military equipment that was no longer needed by the UK, and surplus production from equipment manufactured primarily for the UK. Whilst Stokes was keen to see the industry plan ahead to make its products more attractive to these secondary customers, this was still a far cry from the privately-owned, internationalised arms industry of today.

In line with these changes, DESO now seems to support the sale of equipment with only the most tenuous links to the UK, such as Swedish Gripen fighters with UK-made components. Furthermore, in April 2005 the Disposal Sales Agency, which sells the second-hand equipment, was moved out of DESO, leaving the organisation even more squarely focused on what its mission has evolved to be: the most barefaced form of corporate welfare.

Of course, there was no more ethical justification for running a government department with the sole aim of global arms proliferation in the 1960s than there is today. In four decades, DESO has helped facilitate sales of weapons that were used by human-rights abusing states from General Pinochets Chile to Suhartos Indonesia. It has also presided over arms sales to both sides of a conflict, such as during the Iran-Iraq war of 198088.

Yet as developments in the arms industry have made the justifications for DESOs continued existence increasingly redundant, the influence of arms companies over government policy ensures that the organisation itself continues to occupy a prestigious place in the Ministry of Defence. That influence is maintained by a revolving door between government and industry, through the multiple advisory bodies that arms executives sit on, by corporate lobbying, and crucially through the existence of DESO itself. The Defence Export Services Organisation stands at the centre of a pernicious nexus of corporate influence on government, for which we have to pay. Any strategy for ending the misery caused by UK arms exports must include closing it down.

*Heads of DESO in the last 20 years-*

Colin Chandler 198589
Seconded from British Aerospace; went back to Siemens Plessey, the TI Group, Racal, Vickers.

Alan Thomas 198994
Seconded from Raytheon.

Charles Masefield 19941998
Seconded from Avro and Airbus (part-owned by BAE Systems); went back to GEC and BAE Systems.

Tony Edwards 19982002
Seconded from TI Group

Alan Garwood 2002present
Seconded from MBDA (partowned by BAE Systems).

Do Voters Need Respect?

jo — Mon, 09 May 2005 16:51:48 +0000

Respect are obviously very pleased that the pseudo-acronym they chose as their name is such a useful word. In the last few months they certainly havent missed an opportunity to display its potential for double meanings. Thus weve been told that pensioners deserve Respect, whilst their candidates make slightly cringe-worthy statements like we all deserve Respect or Hackney South deserves Respect. The tendency has culminated in the rather confusing slogan It takes Respect to get respect!

Their manifesto, released on 18 April, follows a similar pattern, with the titles of most of its sections starting Respect for It works quite well for chapters such as Respect for Young People, less well with Respect for Peace or Respect for Decent Housing. But word-play aside, the manifesto does contain some content of interest to the left.

The twelve election priorities are inevitably headed by a call for an end to the occupation of Iraq, whilst the introduction is titled against war and privatisation. The other priorities are exactly those which left activists have been campaigning on for the last few years. This is not, then, as Nick Cohen and the Alliance for Workers Liberty would have us believe, the manifesto of an unholy alliance between a part of the far left and some vaguely defined current of Islamo-fascists. From the evidence of this manifesto, it is rather that a significant proportion of Muslim opinion has for the first time decided to identify itself with what can only be described as a far left project. We should welcome that step.

The devil, of course, is in the detail.

Since the foundation of Respect, various people on the left have claimed it is a step back in terms of radicalism. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has argued that Respect shouldnt write into official policy things like scrapping all immigration controls or the abolition of the monarchy which are too left-wing and would apparently alienate potential working class support (at least thats my understanding of their argument). Critics have alleged this is a sop to get reactionary, or at least mainstream, Muslim organisations on board.

European and by-elections have seen Respect do well in certain areas such as inner east London and central Birmingham, though not in other places, such as Hartlepool. In this election most television news is covering the fight in Bethnal Green and Bow, billed as a straight contest between New Labours Oona King and Respects George Galloway, in some detail. In this regard, and in the level of community support and canvassing in certain areas of the country, Respect are miles ahead of the Socialist Alliance in 2001.

Clearly this is down to an objectively changed situation. The extent to which it is also due to Respects different approach is difficult to say. In terms of the manifesto, though, the most obvious comparison to make is with People Not Profit, the Socialist Alliances 2001 manifesto.

The first thing to notice is that the designers of the Respect manifesto havent been any less enthusiastic about including pictures of people waving placards. And on economic issues, there seems to be very little difference as well. The where will the money come from? section of Respects manifesto seems to have been simply copied and pasted from People Not Profit, so similar are they. Policies on public services; health, education and transport are largely the same. There are generally fewer demands in the Respect manifesto, and more introductory text, but the demands that are missed out are not generally the more radical ones. From support for decent council housing to a good deal for pensioners, Respects economic policies add up to about what any socialist might demand whilst standing in a bourgeois election in the context of a low level of social struggle over economic issues.

On what might be described as social issues, there is a more noticeable difference. As expected on asylum, there is no call for an end to immigration controls (writing in the Morning Star, Galloway argued that no serious person was calling for this). But aside from this, Respect takes a fairly strong line on defending asylum seekers. That doesnt mean that its a particularly coherent position, however. They seem to have settled on an amnesty for all those currently in the UK illegally, plus rolling back New Labours abysmal record, such as dispersal, detention centres and attacks on the right to political asylum. What happens then is not really dealt with. On what basis are people allowed into Britain after the amnesty is over?

Since the manifesto doesnt tell us, are we to assume that Galloways argument (in the same Morning Star article) that we should allow economic migration on the basis of economic need is Respects position? Unfortunately, that is also what I heard the political editor of the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh, arguing on the news this evening. It certainly seems like a policy which puts the needs of corporations before those of human beings, and as such is very problematic. One could argue, that since even in Respects wildest dreams it will only get a couple of seats, the campaign demands which it has offered us are all thats needed for now, rather than a fully worked out policy. All we can say for certain is that theyre all were going to get.

Another contrast is over homophobia. Under the heading No compromise on equality, People Not Profit talked about the fight against racism, sexism and homophobia. Respect talks about an end to discrimination and social oppression. To be fair, most of the demands on homophobia in People Not Profit have belatedly been met by New Labour partnership rights, an equal age of consent, the repeal of section 28 and employment rights all went through in Labours second term. But legal rights alone do not determine equality, and a mention of homophobic violence and rights to asylum on the basis of the threat of violence because of your sexuality might have been mentioned.

One welcome development, on the other hand, is that whilst People Not Profit gave disability discrimination a bullet point, Respect gives it a whole section. The text suggests that the author might be a campaigner and expert on the issue. The same cannot be said for some other sections, such as that on globalisation.

Contrary to the expectations of some of Respects critics, and in distinction to Galloways views on the matter which indicates perhaps we shouldnt take everything he utters to be Respect policy the manifesto states clearly that they are for defending a womans right to choose.

Another major omission from Respects manifesto is the Socialist Alliances call for the legalisation of drugs. In fact, the sole mention of drugs is a call to increase treatment centre resources in the ridiculously short crime section (which luckily isnt called Respect for Crime). Unlike some of the issues which have slipped away in the slimming down of demands since People Not Profit, the legalisation of drugs can hardly be described as marginal. Despite reclassification, cannabis remains illegal and our drug laws serve to criminalise a huge section of the population, with the working class bearing the brunt. Decriminalisation is a working class issue, and such an important one that its omission can only be significant. In the absence of any other policy, again we can only go on George Galloways comments that we should have a war on drugs instead of a war on Muslims. Theres nothing like a false choice to make a politician stand out from the crowd.

These problems aside, the Respect manifesto is a firmly leftwing document. It may not look that great, and reads in places like its been thrown together in a hurry, but taken in isolation the Respect manifesto is something any socialist not plagued by pedantry could support. Its certainly near enough the mark to ensure they get my vote in Tottenham.

East Ham candidate Abdul Khaliq has said that he sees Respect not as a radical party, but as a democratic one. Perhaps he wasnt aware of what was to be included in the Manifesto, as Respect certainly is a radical party in the context of Britain to day. When Khaliq says its democratic, though, he inadvertently raises that other issue which has left a substantial section of left activists cold when it comes to Respect its internal democracy. Cautious after the experience of the Socialist Alliance, and certainly not reassured by reports of Respects first proper conference, such activists would certainly see some irony in the Respect manifestos call for society to be organised in the most open, democratic, participative and accountable way.

In certain areas Respect have managed to achieve the kind of reach that represents the best progress for the radical left in a long while. On the evidence of this manifesto, they seem to have done so without dropping too much of the radicalism. But unless they can start to command the electoral loyalty of a bigger section of leftwing opinion, in the way that Rifondazione Comunista does in Italy, it may not look so rosy after the election. And in order to do that, they have to make a real (and humble) effort to show they can be open, democratic, participative and accountable. On that challenge, this manifesto has no answers.