Britain’s public services – education, healthcare, local government, mail, and transport – are all suffering from chronic neglect and underinvestment.
The North West ranks as the second most deprived area in the country. In Manchester, a high of 41% of neighbourhoods are classed as deprived whilst Barrow, host to BAE Systems’ nuclear submarine programme, has a considerable concentration of unemployment and high rates of child poverty.
Massive public investment is needed to rebuild the social and economic fabric of working-class communities. Yet amidst intensifying global conflict, escalating climate crisis and soaring inequality – with the decision to dramatically increase defence spending in its 2024 Strategic Defence Review, the Labour government committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. At the same time, it decided to cut spending on education.
And now, under political pressure from Trump, as Starmer moves the country towards actual ‘war-fighting readiness’, the military spend is expected to ratchet up to 5 per cent of GDP.
The government presents the increase in arms manufacturing as the way out for the country’s economic and social problems, announcing new jobs in the sector as good for local communities as a whole.
But, the ever-higher expenditure on arms means less money for our education, health, councils, and the green transition: the plans will not only exacerbate our problems but tie us ever more closely to the US, carrying us rapidly along the path to war between the major powers.
To the country and the North West region’s shame, British participation in the F-35 programme has implicated us in Israel’s grave violations of international law in Gaza.
And now, Starmer’s approach towards militarisation is reaching out into wider society and schools.
A resolution on Wages not Weapons was passed last year by the TUC Congress, calling for the reversal of policy dating from 2022, of support for immediate increases in defence spending. Noting that ‘actively campaigning for ever-higher spending on arms risks signalling approval of a wider drive to war, it called on the trade union movement to ‘stand, in our best traditions, for peace and against militarisation’.
The North West, home to leading arms companies including BAE systems, MBDA, Thales and WFEL, is seen as a ‘national strategic asset’. Potential sites for new munitions factories have been identified in the region, whilst the UK’s National Cyber Force (NCF) was recently opened by BAE Systems in Lancashire.
Based on CND’s recent Alternative Defence Review, this event aims to raise awareness of militarisation and its wider impact on the North West and to come up with concrete strategies for taking the TUC motion into workplaces and communities, focusing on developing practical ideas on:
What are the costs and consequences of increasing military spending? How do we stop the race to war?
How can we tackle the government’s arguments that investment in the military sector is good for the country? How should trade unions and communities respond? In which areas can we have the most effect?
There will be a panel session featuring leading figures in the peace movement, Kate Hudson (Vice President of CND) and Alex Gordon (National Officer of Stop the War Coalition and formerly President of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), plus contributions from peace campaigners in Germany and Belgium
But mostly, this conference is about what you can do. There will be breakout sessions focusing on specific areas of work, such as:
- How to initiate conversations in workplaces and communities;
- How to link the concerns of workers in service sector and military manufacturing;
- How to put our leading positions in education, science and innovation to use to foster peace and development rather than confrontation;
- How to build new networks for peace, bringing industry, local government, universities and research centres together.
Saturday 7th March, Cross St Chapel, Cross St, Manchester M2 1NL, from 1pm-4.30pm. There will be refreshments.
You can register for the event here!
