Workers For Palestine: Blockading BAE Systems in Glasgow

Palestinian solidarity activists blockaded BAE Systems factory in Glasgow’s Govan District on 7 December 2023. The blockade at the entrances to the BAE Systems site in Glasgow was organised by a local group in co-ordination with Workers for a Free Palestine. The blockade was in protest over the defence company’s ties to Israel, a call for a ceasefire, and an end to the Israeli occupation.

BAE Systems supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including components for combat aircraft, munitions, missile launching kits, and armored vehicles. BAE technologies are also integrated into Israel’s main weapon systems, including fighter jets, drones, and warships. These weapons are often gifted to Israel through the US government’s Foreign Military Financing program. For years, these weapons have repeatedly been used against Palestinian civilians, resulting in numerous casualties as well as mass destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and water and electric systems. These attacks include war crimes that Israel has committed during several major military offensives against the Gaza Strip. The British campaign group has also blockaded defence factories in Dorset, Brighton and Lancashire.

Campaigning against the arms trade and the links between the weapons industry and its ties to the genocide occurring in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing across the West Bank and Israel needs to be a political priority of solidarity work. It directly connects with the need to conversion struggles over military production to shift out of producing weapons for war to ecologically-reponsible production for need and addressing climate change. In Canada, see the work of Labour Against the Arms Trade and Green Jobs Oshawa.