Activists are mobilising to shut down the UK’s biggest arms fair

67 national and regional organisations from Scotland to Cornwall are uniting and mobilising for ‘The Big One’: a coalition action to shut down one of the world’s biggest – and the UK’s largest – arms fairs, DSEI.

DSEI: shut down the UK’s largest arms fair

Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) is taking place at the ExCeL centre in London between 9-12 September. ‘The Big One: Shut Down DSEI 2025’ aims to build a mass mobilisation to stop the arms fair taking place on its first day – Tuesday 9 September.

In 2023, 1500 exhibitors, including the world’s largest and worst arms dealers, networked with 35,000 delegates representing nearly 100 countries. This included official government invited delegations from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Bahrain, Turkey, and Qatar.

Israel always plays a prominent role at DSEI, with the UK government inviting an official Israeli government delegation. If this happens in 2025, it will be our government continuing to roll out the red carpet to legitimise and enable war criminals. They will come to shop for even deadlier weapons to wage their genocide against the Palestinian people.

Israel’s pavilion at DSEI

DSEI is currently advertising the presence of Israel’s country pavilion. While it has not yet published its list of exhibitors, several Israeli arms companies are confirmed as attending. This includes Israel Aerospace Industries, who are promoting their presence with a brochure of military equipment Israel has used to commit genocide in Gaza.

In 2023, brigadier general Dr Danny Gold, head of directorate of defense research and development for the Israeli Ministry of Defence gave a keynote speech. In addition to this, 48 domestic Israeli arms companies exhibited at the event. These are companies that are directly responsible for, and directly profiting from, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the war crimes it is committing in the West Bank and Lebanon.

A call to action: shut down the profiteers from genocide

The call to action states that DSEI:

is a marketplace in death and destruction. It takes place every two years and is where arms dealers and politicians meet and make deals for genocide, war, and more human rights abuses. This is where they stock up on the latest lethal weapons and tools for repression – all with the backing of the British state.

British colonial violence did not end when hard fought liberation struggles were waged around the globe. Instead, as empires crumbled, global colonial and imperialist forces adapted. Now, arms fairs, like DSEI UK, continue to back the profiteers of state-led death, occupation and violence that has never ceased.

This is where war starts. This is where repressive border policies start. This is where torture starts. This is where the contacts are made and the lucrative deals done that fuel genocide, war crimes and human rights abuses around the world. This is why we have to shut it down.

It continues:

DSEI is massively important to the British government. We can shut it down – but only if we have numbers! Our government is hoping we’ll be scared to take to the streets. But we say no! We say we’ll stop genocide profiteers in their tracks. This is our moment to come together, across our movements, to show that proscription won’t stop us taking actions against the arms trade.

A spokesperson for the coalition said:

Our government is allowing Israeli war criminals to come to London to buy and sell more weapons to further fuel their genocide against the Palestinian people. This is not only illegal and immoral, it is downright evil. We cannot allow this to happen. This is a government complicit in genocide, that lies about arms sales, and that has lost all legitimacy.

It hoped that banning Palestine Action would stop direct action against the arms trade. But the number of national and regional groups endorsing our coalition shows this has failed. Across the country people are mobilising and showing they are willing to do what is necessary to shut DSEI down.