The government won’t block the return of the world’s largest arms fair – so I’m protesting to stop it for good

Last year’s demonstrations against Donald Trump drew some of the biggest crowds seen at UK protests since the Iraq war. People were absolutely right to protest his divisive politics and his far-right bating. They are right to condemn his Mexico border wall and the detention of children. But here in the UK, and all across Europe, we have our own racist and violent borders which draw much less attention.

In 2014, the Italian Navy removed its “Mare Nostrum” search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, put in place after 600 people drowned, blaming lack of financial support from other EU countries like our own (the UK has consistently refused to share responsibility for migrants arriving in Europe).

This decision saw a catastrophic rise in deaths at sea, with more than 1,200 people drowning in one week in April 2015 alone. The Missing Migrant Project recorded at least 13,000 deaths/missing persons on the central Mediterranean crossing between Northern Africa and Italy between 2014 and 2017. The true numbers are probably much higher.

Boris Johnson recently promised to send back migrants crossing the Channel UK “illegally” – omitting to mention that there is no legal route. The truth is, everyone has a right to asylum by UK and international law.

Yet with the full support of the UK government intent on keeping its borders “externalised”, the EU trains and funds the Libyan authorities to intercept boats and return migrants to Libyan detention centres, where conditions are so dire that the UN has called for them to be immediately dismantled.

Governments are criminalising NGOs and individuals trying to help save lives. All to avoid creating a “pull-factor” – i.e. encouraging people to make a trip most would give their life savings and risk death for to escape unspeakable suffering.

If people do make it to the UK, they can be detained without limit and deported without due process, tearing apart families and lives. UK detention centres are so inhumane that, according to Freedom of Information requests, suicide attemps were reported twice daily last summer. Would the government allow white British people to be treated like this?

Next week, one of the world’s biggest arms fairs, the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) fair, will be at the Excel Centre in London. Don’t let the name fool you. This is a trade show for war and those that profit from it.

Discussions about “defence and security” will serve as recipes for yet more war and oppression. Arms sales will be negotiated while delegates attend seminars to learn about the latest in surveillance and equipment for increasingly militarised borders that people are forced to flee to when arms sales fuel violence.

Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, as well as local authorities and other campaign groups were right in their choice to speak out against the event.

When the Thales group, the 10th largest arms company in the world, isn’t selling weapons, it also profits from sales in security equipment and technology creating borders in places like Eastern Latvia, and the port of Calais – where you’ll meet people driven from armed conflict in Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan. Through its subsidiaries, Italian arms company Leonardo S.p.A. sold military helicopters to Libya, and also provided Libya with border security and control systems. You get the picture.

Research from Corporate Watch even shows that the same companies are lobbying for the creation of tougher EU border policies and securitised borders, which they then win contracts to deliver. This is what the “defence and security” industry looks like. It’s a stitch up.

These companies will be at the arms fair next week, invited by the UK government. Ministers will deliver keynote speeches, civil servants on hand to greet guests, and arms companies will roll out the red carpet for countries at war and regimes abusing human rights around the world.

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants will be there to protest, in solidarity with migrants facing the violence of the arms trade and the state. We’ll be there to defend the right of all people to seek sanctuary, or a better life, without fear of violence, detention and racist borders.

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants are a group of queer activists who stand in solidarity with all migrants and refugees. Through fundraising and creative direct action, they fight back against the hostile environment and reject racist narratives that pit queer communities and migrants against one another