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| Volume 56 Number 9, March 21, 2026 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Based on a presentation given at a London RCPB(ML) discussion meeting
What did Prime Minister Keir Starmer mean by saying the British state has
been "feeble" as he did last year? This means that the working class
and people should expect increased rule on the basis of the police powers of
the executive, of police rule, with even the possibility of this being extended
to military powers. In other words, it also applies to militarisation, where it
is used as a reason for strengthening the military, increasing the spending on
so-called "defence". The government's Strategic Defence Review was
announced by the Prime Minister in June last year. This, as Starmer said then,
aims to turn Britain's already
military-dominated economy into a fully militarised economy and to put
British society on a war footing. And Starmer's words on Britain's engagement
in the war against Iran have demonstrated the fraud of "defence"
versus "attack" and the actual subservience to Trump's wanton
exercise of extreme violence, warmongering and contempt for all international
norms.
Furthermore, it is not only an issue with the government directly, but the issue of putting arms manufacturers at the centre of the war machine. Keir Starmer's aspiration is to put Britain and its arms industries at the centre of a militarised Europe. British arms exports have soared to a record £9.2bn. The value of UK "single individual" licences for arms exports in 2024 (the latest full-year figures) increased by 86% to reach a record £9.2bn. Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Qatar, and the US are the top recipients. There is a close relationship between British and US arms industries. The figure of £9.2bn does not cover exports under unlimited "open" licences. The Campaign against the Arms Trade (CAAT) estimates these account for roughly half of all UK arms exports. And for some countries and regions, including the US and West Asia, a substantial majority of exports go through open licences.
The major legal, regulated arms and defence manufacturers operating in Britain, producing defence systems, aerospace technology, naval systems, vehicles, electronics and other equipment, are [1]:
BAE Systems: Sector: Aerospace, naval systems, armoured vehicles, munitions; Notes: Largest defence contractor in the UK; major supplier to MoD; Products: Typhoon fighter (with partners), submarines, artillery, naval ships
Rolls Royce Defence:Sector: Military jet engines, naval nuclear propulsion; Products: Engines for Typhoon, Hawk, and naval reactors
Leonardo UK: Sector: Radar, helicopters, avionics, electronic warfare; Products: AW159 Wildcat, AESA radars, defensive systems
MBDA UK: Sector: Missiles and missile systems; Products: Brimstone, Meteor, Sea Ceptor
Thales UK: Sector: Sensors, communications, naval systems; Products: Sonar, optronics, air defence components
QinetiQ: Sector: Defence research, robotics, testing; Products: Robotics, sensors, test ranges
Babcock International: Sector: Naval engineering, shipbuilding, support; Products: Type 31 frigate programme
BAE Systems Munitions (formerly Royal Ordnance): Sector: Small arms ammunition, artillery shells; Products: 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 155mm shells
Ultra Electronics: Sector: Submarine systems, sonar, communications
Chemring Group: Sector: Countermeasures, pyrotechnics, sensors; Products: Flares, decoys, explosives detection
Other notable companies producing components, vehicles, electronics, or support systems are:
London demonstration confronting the US Embassy, March 7
2026
Marshall Aerospace & Defence - military shelters, aircraft support; Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL) - armoured vehicles (e.g., Boxer): Supacat - high-mobility military vehicles; Jankel Group - protected vehicles, armour systems; Meggitt (now part of Parker) - aerospace components, defence systems; Cranfield Aerospace - aerospace engineering; AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) - nuclear warhead stewardship (highly regulated); BAE Systems Maritime - submarines and warships
Some key issues arising are the arms sales to Israel in the context of the genocidal war on Gaza; the government's push to sell Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; and the sale of arms to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the context of the UAE's role in arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in Sudan. Britain is also to procure more anti-drone missiles in show of support for Gulf allies.
Companies which have links with supplying weapons to Israel, and vice versa the Israeli military firms which have links in Britain, are as follows [2]:
1. Israeli arms companies with a UK footprint
RAF conducts first air strikes of Iraq mission - Photo:
MOD
Elbit Systems & Elbit Systems UK
Role: Israel's largest arms producer; describes its drones as the "backbone" of Israel's drone fleet.
UK presence: CAAT lists four UK subsidiaries-Instro Precision, Elite KL, Ferranti Technologies, UAV Engines-plus joint ventures UAV Technologies (with Thales UK) and Affinity (with KBR).
Facilities: Some UK sites have been the focus of sustained protest and at least one closure has been reported in Bristol.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
Role: State-owned Israeli arms company, among the world's largest.
UK link: Contracted to supply Jaguar Remote Patrol Vehicles to the UK for unmanned land systems trials.
Rafael & Israel Military Industries (IMI)
Role: Along with Elbit and IAI, these form the core of Israel's arms industry, exporting globally.
UK link: Their equipment and components appear in international supply chains; CAAT flags them as key Israeli suppliers, though specific UK-plant footprints are less prominent than Elbit's.
2. UK and European manufacturers tied into Israeli projects
Thales UK
Type of link: Joint programmes and technology sharing with Elbit.
Example: The Watchkeeper WK450 UAV, delivered to the UK under an ~£800m contract, is based on Elbit's Hermes drone platform.
UAV Tactical Systems / "UAV Technologies" JV
Structure: Joint venture between Elbit and Thales UK, operating in the UK.
Role: Involved in production and support of the Watchkeeper UAV system used by the British Army.
Affinity (Elbit + KBR)
Type of link: Joint venture providing UK military flight training services and platforms.
There are many smaller industries which produce components for military hardware. Many UK-based arms and dual-use manufacturers may have export licences to Israel (or to programmes involving Israeli end-users), even if they do not advertise it. Those links show up in UK Strategic Export Controls data and NGO analyses rather than in neat corporate lists.
Israel now possesses 48 F-35 combat jets, 15% of which is made in the UK. Israel has been using its F-35s in so-called "beast mode" to bomb Gaza.
Britain, along with France and Germany, is also contributing significantly to the militarisation of Europe. In July 2025, Britain and France signed the Northwood and the Lancaster House 2.0 declarations. The former concerns nuclear co-operation between Britain and France, committing both states to co-ordinating nuclear policy, capabilities and operations. The latter, according to the British government, is said to reboot, modernise and build upon the bilateral defence and security relationship between the two countries, including under the Lancaster House Treaties, in order to "effect a generational shift in both our bilateral co-operation and our joint contribution to the defence of Europe" through co-operation on nuclear weapons, overhauling the existing Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, and "bringing our defence industries and militaries closer than ever before to strengthen NATO".
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Keir Starmer affirmed: "We must go beyond the historic steps that we took at last year's UK-EU summit to build the formidable productive power and innovative strength that we need. British companies already account for over a quarter of the continent's defence industrial base."
Regarding the role of AI in militarisation, it is being described as compressing military kill chains from days to seconds, a shift that the Iran war has made impossible to ignore. But the technology is outpacing accountability: civilian harm frameworks have been dismantled, targeting lawyers fired, and over 1,200 Iranian civilians killed as the Pentagon prioritises lethality over deliberation. Britain has awarded 26 arms firms lucrative contracts to develop its own autonomous targeting systems - this is despite numerous atrocities in Gaza - and now, Iran - being linked with haphazard AI kill chain systems. Gaza has been a testing ground for AI in warfare. Drone Wars' Chris Cole has said: "While militaries are keen to use AI to speed up decision making around lethal strikes, there are serious ethical and legal concerns about these developments, with increasing evidence that ratcheting up the number of strikes leads to greater danger for civilians."
As well as the US effectively having over a dozen bases on British soil, Britain has bases abroad in connection with its colonial past. For example, in Cyprus, not only was the Akrotiri base targeted in the waves of retaliation against Britain's aggression, but the campaign of the people of Cyprus against the presence of British bases had been steadily growing since well before that. Britain also hosts four US spy facilities on Cyprus. The complicity of Starmer with the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza was also exposed when hundreds of surveillance flights were sent by Britain over Gaza from Akrotiri. Officially they were looking for hostages, but no evidence has ever been provided that they helped find any, raising concerns that Israel could have used intelligence from the planes for its general war effort. US military transport planes were also allowed to pass through Akrotiri en route to Israel.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has refused to disclose to the media or parliament how many Iranian civilians have been killed by US bombing missions from British air bases. Keir Starmer says that US strikes from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and the British-occupied Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia were "to destroy [Iran's] missiles at source, in their storage depots or at their launchers".
With militarisation and the push to develop war industries, international norms and the international rule of law are counting for nothing, and it counts for nothing for governments like Britain's that Trump's wanton violence is carried out in pulverising these norms and laws, whatever Starmer may say.
For example, on January 7, United States military forces, supported by British forces, intercepted the oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean south of Iceland. The ship was sailed towards the UK, arrived in the Moray Firth on January 13 and anchored there in British territorial waters. Subsequently, the captain and first officer were removed from UK jurisdiction by the US Coastguard to face criminal charges in the United States. The British government agreed to a request from the US to provide support for repatriation of the remaining 26 members of the Bella 1 crew who had not been arrested (none of whom were UK nationals). The whole affair was conducted, as part of the US targeting of Venezuela and its oil shipments, in contravention of recognised international law.
The imposition of a blockade on Venezuela has been condemned by many sources, including UN experts and international lawyers: there is no right to enforce unilateral sanctions through an armed blockade. The US has broken the prohibition on the use force contained in the UN Charter and Britain has acted unlawfully by providing logistical and military support for the US action.
Protesters at the Munich Security Conference, February 14
2026
In the movement against militarisation and war, the working class and people have to work to consolidate themselves as the power to combat the warmongering, violence, dictate and militarism of the ruling elite. They must set their sights on constituting themselves as an Anti-War Government, and all that entails about authority and power resting with the people who desire peace. The youth must not be made cannon-fodder in the wars of the ruling elite and the armaments industry!
The anti-war movement is demanding that the government end its militarisation - to end all involvement in the US and Israel's war on Iran, including stopping the use of British bases here and in Cyprus for military attacks, and to join the growing international calls for an immediate end to the bombing. The anti-war movement truly has the crucial task of opposing the warmongering schemes of the British government, whether here in Britain, or with the self-titled "coalition of the willing" in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, or in alliance with the US regime in the Middle East.
The resistance to Britain's militarisation is growing, and it is a central part of the Party's work to bring out and inspire the human factor/social consciousness in this transitional period of history. In that context, the implications of what an Anti-War Government mean present themselves to be elaborated. In a word, it means something new, something from which everyone can gain confidence, as they do more than simply react to the retrogression linked with the restructuring of the state to ensure that governments are constituted by oligarchs or representatives of those vested private interests. It can be seen that militarisation is not simply a rise in "defence spending", but is the road along which these oligarchs and governments are taking society. So the anti-war movement in its direction towards an Anti-War Government does more than react, or put its faith in a limited number of justly supported figures who take a stand against imperialist war, but works out ways to concretise how society must be organised so that sovereignty lies with the people and eventually political power is grasped, and the state acquires a modern democratic personality. The strength and future lies with the people as they break with the old conscience of society and fight for the alternative.
The call is for a modern state which enshrines the rights of all by virtue of being human and their concrete reality. The alternative is being created as working people themselves constitute the authority at each turn of events and decide directly how to intervene to make sure whatever the ruling class is implementing at their expense cannot succeed. This means that those who currently deprive the people of power must themselves be deprived of the power to rule with impunity.
Britain Urgently Needs an Anti-War Government!
Notes
1. Retrieved via AI.
2. Retrieved via AI.
(other sources: The Canary, Declassified, Drone Wars, CAAT, Workers' Weekly)