How Wales is being drawn into Europe’s new arms race

In early August, we noticed an event due to take place in Newport on September 3, billed as the ‘Defence Resilience Security Cymru’ summit.

Its sponsors were Business in Focus, ADS Group, the arms industry trade body representing many of the world’s biggest arms companies, General Dynamics Land Systems, a subsidiary of the US arms giant General Dynamics, which supplies Israel, and the Welsh Government. Adam Price, the former Plaid Cymru leader and current Welsh enterprise minister, was promoted as a keynote speaker.

The organisers promised more than 2,000 attendees and 60 exhibitors, bringing together “buyers, suppliers and innovators” to help businesses enter defence supply chains and cash in on increased UK military spending.

There is another name for bringing governments, militaries and arms companies together to expand arms production and sales: an arms fair.

But the arms fair was only part of a broader drive to expand the Welsh arms industry.

Rearmament

In February, the Westminster and the Welsh Government signed the Wales Defence Growth Deal. It allocated £50 million to expand the Welsh arms industry, bring more businesses and universities into arms supply chains, increase military testing, and develop Wales as a UK launchpad for autonomous weapons systems that can operate with little or no human oversight.

A month later, a permanent network, the Wales Defence & Security Cluster, was established to help deliver the deal. Chaired by Thales, a major arms supplier to Israel, and Airbus Defence, it brings together the UK and Welsh governments, the military, arms firms, universities, colleges and almost 160 businesses, with the aim of expanding opportunities in the Welsh arms industry.

By the time we came across the summit, the infrastructure for expanding Wales’s arms industry was already being put in place. The inaugural Defence Resilience Security Cymru summit was designed to be its flagship event.

The groundwork had been laid under the previous Labour Welsh Government, but it was supported by Plaid in opposition and is now being advanced in government. The new First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has complained that Wales is not getting its fair share of increased UK military spending.

The wider context is of course European states embarking on a new era of rearmament. For decades, the United States has poured billions into Europe’s ‘defence’. Donald Trump now wants European allies to shoulder more of the burden, pushing military spending towards levels not seen since the Cold War to free up US resources for its military build-up against China.

Commotion

On August 7, I published an article: “Plaid Cymru once opposed arms fairs. Now it is helping organise one.” We set out why we opposed the event.

1. Companies involved, including General Dynamics and BAE Systems, supplied Israel and authoritarian regimes. By partnering with them, the Welsh Government contradicted Plaid’s own 2024 conference vote backing boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including an arms embargo.
2. The arms fair was part of the UK’s military expansion. Across Europe, soaring military spending was being funded by attacks on the welfare state. Research by the Transition Security Project suggested that, because rearmament was funded by cuts to other government departments, the UK’s military build-up may destroy almost twice as many jobs as it creates in defence. We said the Welsh Government should be fighting that agenda, not enabling it.
3. Wales faces a climate emergency, a housing crisis and high levels of poverty. The knowledge and ingenuity of our skilled workers, engineers, technicians and scientists could be directed towards socially useful production: renewable energy, public transport, home insulation, affordable housing and strong public services. We should use our industrial capacity to meet social needs, rather than expand an arms economy.

If Wales and Westminster are serious about security, they should start with climate jobs, warm homes, good public services and a safe environment.

The article caused a commotion within Plaid. Three backbench Senedd Members privately contacted me with concerns about Welsh Government involvement, while Adam Price pulled out. The party said his appearance had been advertised by mistake.

As pressure mounted, the new Welsh Government began distancing itself from the event, claiming it was an initiative of the previous administration that it was contractually obliged to support.

Unravelled

That spin unravelled through a series of investigative articles I helped put together. We revealed that Price had visited the Farnborough International Airshow, which incorporates one of Britain’s biggest arms fairs, where Israel’s three largest arms companies exhibited. He met the ADS Group there to discuss implementing the Wales Defence Growth Deal. The Welsh Government had also met Sagar Defence Engineering, an Indian arms company with close links to Israel.

We also revealed that the new Welsh Government had approved around £70,000 for a stand at DSEI Germany, an international arms fair, in 2027.

In opposition, Plaid had criticised Welsh Labour’s participation in arms fairs. The party has built support through standing against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nuclear weapons, the destruction of Gaza and DARC, the planned US military radar. Yet behind the scenes, its leadership was supporting increased UK military spending.

A coalition including Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, Newport Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mid-Wales Against Arms, CND Cymru, Cymdeithas y Cymod and Black Lives Matter called a protest against what we dubbed the Welsh Government Arms Fair, deliberately highlighting the administration’s role.

On September 3, protesters used non-violent direct action to block two roads into the venue as delegates arrived. Police eventually rerouted arrivals and the summit went ahead, but the disruption attracted media attention and highlighted opposition to Welsh Government involvement.

Moratorium

Later that afternoon, Adam Price announced a temporary moratorium on Welsh Government support for major defence investment initiatives, pending a new “ethical” framework for the Welsh defence sector later this year.

We do not yet know what the framework will contain. Any restrictions on supplying Israel and other regimes responsible for grave abuses would be welcome. But arms controls are only as effective as the political will and oversight behind them. Experience elsewhere shows how easily companies can exploit loopholes and weak regulation.

Scotland provides a warning. A year after promising to stop public money going to arms companies supplying Israel, the Scottish Government had provided £5.5 million to such companies. It also lifted a long-standing restriction on public funding for munitions production.

Flanders offers another warning. Its 2012 arms controls, cited as a possible model for Wales, saw companies working around them to supply Israel. Meanwhile, Flanders increased arms supplies to the US military and NATO allies during the wars in Afghanistan and the wider War on Terror.

This exposes the central flaw. Britain’s foreign policy, bound to the US through the ‘special relationship’, has repeatedly backed wars of aggression, with devastating consequences in lives lost and countries destroyed. Yet challenging British and US imperialism is entirely absent from Plaid’s framing of an ‘ethical’ defence sector. Is expanding Britain’s capacity for military aggression simply deemed acceptable?

The Welsh Government appears to seek an ethical fig leaf for an unethical military expansion, that ties Wales more closely to the British military-industrial complex while diverting resources from the things people need.