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c i
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gri the
British arms trade is booming all over
the world especially where there's war
or the possibility of it in both cases
British foreign policy is closely linked
to the arms trade we start the wars
Insite them fuel them and in every case
the human tide washes up on our Shores
then we cried jny Foreigner cranking up
the xenophobia which in turn leads to
more demand for more Wars more weapons
and off we go again it's profitable for
sure arm sales from Britain to the Head
chopping Saudi despotism alone has raged
in more than 50 billion pounds over the
last 30 years at least neither are we in
any position to control the end result
weapons and training we sold to the
Saudis ended up crushing the Democracy
movement in bahin
weapons we are now selling the Saudis
are quickly transferred to Syria where
they end up in the hands of Isis and
Al-Qaeda and no doubt some of the bombs
rockets and Napal pouring down on Yemen
originated here too joining us now is
Andrew Smith from the campaign against
the arms trade a pretty uh hopeless
campaign isn't it Britain seems hooked
to the arms trade well first of all
thank you for having me on today um I
mean we are trying to campaign ourselves
out of existence we want to end the arms
trade we want Britain to stop selling
weapons to merous dictatorships like
Saudi Arabia murderous dictatorships
like bin and like the entire long list
of Tetro desports that the UK is selling
weapons to how's that going well I think
it's certainly marathan not a Sprint um
you know yourself when taking on any
vested interest or multi-billion pound
industry that certainly there's an awful
lot of influence which the arms trade
has a corridors of power an example of
that was um earlier this year in January
when the ads which is kind of the trade
body that represents the arms trade held
its annual dinner in um the Hilton hotel
in Mayfair it's attended by over 40 MPS
from across the labor party of
conservatives and liberal Democrats the
guest speaker for the night was Vince
cable who was the government Minister
who was meant to be in charge of
regulating the arms trade the shadow
defense secretary was there as well ifer
links the arms trade has when in some
ways it's a little wonder that they
managed to carry such a loud voice it's
a criminal Enterprise isn't it if I was
handing out bread knives to gang members
here I'd be in prison uh but here we
have British companies Paka many of them
ending up in the House of Lords having
their dinners in Mayfair getting all the
Great and the good there and what
they're doing is handing something much
more deadly than bread knives to people
who are much more deadly than gang
members well that's completely true I
mean the government takes a very
sensible position that it shouldn't be
easy for any of us to go into a shop and
buy a gun it's actually incredibly
difficult and quite right too because
the government's made the correct
calculation that if it's really easy to
get weapons and was more likely to be
crime on the other hand it has no
problem selling vast quantities of
weapons and actually every year
ukti um publishes its list of priority
markets for arm sales and the most
recent list includes Bahrain it includes
Saudi Arabia it includes a whole host of
really oppressive dictatorships and
regimes Saudi Arabia is the largest
buyer of UK weapons it's worse isn't it
because we're selling weapons to Saudi
Arabia that within weeks are in the
hands of the al-Qaeda and Isis forces uh
in Syria but I I want to take you back
to something that quite Illuminating
that you alluded to a minute ago this is
a bipartisan Affair labor MPS were at
that dinner the shadow defense minister
was at that dinner
when labor was in power I will remember
a conversation with Jack straw over the
uh the issue of selling weapons to the
Saro dictatorship in Indonesia this
after laor had promised that they
wouldn't do so and promised that they
would have an ethical foreign policy
what is it about this junk that they are
addicted to that uh spread so easily
across the front benches I think you're
correct is definitely not a party
political issue um as I say all the
parties were represented at that dinner
I imagine your invite must have got lost
in the mail um but the all the main
parties were represented at that dinner
um and it was front bench spokes people
for all the parties that were giving
lots of warm words to the arm Street and
accepting very expensive dinners from
Arms Company Executives now if that
isn't going to well Mr Blair had uh a
very close relationship with dick Evans
a British AOS is the biggest of the arms
companies and indeed they're uh still
working happily together in uh some
parts of the former Soviet Union and
both doing very well thank you uh so the
the this relationship must be based on
uh something tangible and what's the
tangible is it money well with ba system
specifically um in Robin Cook's
autobiography he spe he says that ba
systems in his words had the back door
key to dining Street and I don't think
he's talking literally but what he was
meaning was that Tony Blair would not
make a foreign policy decision without
Bae being on board first and I think
with ba there is a very very close
relationship but part of it is because
of revolving door which we've seen from
the corridors of power into the
corridors of the arms companies probably
the most naked example of that was Jeff
hon who was a defense secretary in the
last Labor government who gave a
contract worth 1.7 billion pound to
Augusta Westland and then funnily enough
after he left parliament in disgrace
might I add after a lobbying Scandal
turned up as head of European sales for
Augusta Westland so I think there's
certainly all these kind of connections
and I think transparency is most
important thing and if there's one trade
that doesn't like being transparent and
doesn't like having the results of its
terrible crimes held up to public when
it's the arms trade um I wonder why uh
Britain has such a primary role in this
industry has it always been the case or
is it more so post Tater era that it has
got nothing else to sell well it
certainly grew during the F years and
certainly that's been the kind of policy
ever since then um but actually we
always hear factious arguments about
creating lots of jobs but in reality
this isn't the case arms exports account
for about 0.2% of jobs in the UK economy
it's actually a very small sector but
it's a very small sector which has
always enjoyed a totally
disproportionate level of of support I
mean um we've got the DI Arms Fair
coming up in September in East London
which is going to be kind of like
glastenbury for the arms trade it's
going to bring together thousands of
Arms Company Representatives with lots
of politicians with almost every
despotic dictatorship you could care to
mention and it's being organized by the
government it's being organized by civil
servants it's going to have government
ministers and attendance they'll be
doing a lot of a promotion for it and
that's a key point because the
government isn't a neutral bystander in
the arms Trad it um takes a deal from
company a and sells it to Country b or
whatever it's actually an act active
participant as well we've seen that even
in the last few months Philip Hammond
the foreign secretary has been in
Bahrain openly lobbying for the Bahraini
government to buy Euro Fighter jets and
he's been openly talking about
negotiations in the Press there's no
attempt at secrecy because there doesn't
need to be the government is a proarms
trade government and wants to send that
message well it's it's glastenbury in
which the participants are up to their
knees in blood rather than mud
yes uh but it is a mark of Shame on
London that yet again we're going to
host uh this grizzly Bazaar where the
worst General isos are fed around in
Ministry of Defense cars I've seen them
protected by British Military Officers
in no doubt bullet and bombproof
limousines fed out from their five-star
London hotels in the center of town out
to the East End
uh where they will be courted openly uh
no doubt there will be dodgy business
done as there has been done in the past
and off go these General isos with more
methods means of killing people now
that's a very direct example of the
State uh organizing this criminal
Enterprise but of course the taxpayer is
forced in many cases aren't they to
underwrite this through the export
credit guarantee scheme tell us about
that well yeah I mean there's often this
kind of misconception that the arms
trade brings in lots of money and we've
already talked about jobs but actually
on the money front it doesn't either
there's been some Studies have put
public that as a subsidized industry
arms exports Al loone cost taxpayers
about £700 million every year so because
of this it's it's partially because of
that partially because of the money
which gets spent on organizing all the
various arms trips and tours and part of
it on kind of promotion of events like
DIY and things like that so actually
it's not this kind of economic
Powerhouse of a country and even if it
was even if those kind of talks were
true even if there was any truth in it
whatsoever then see then that raises the
question of why the UK would be so
dependent on having to sell weapons to
some of the worst people in the world in
order to pay its way and actually
there's a very real human cost to this
as well because if we look to Egypt
where UK tier gas has been used against
peaceful protesters we look to Hong Kong
where UK tier gas again has been used we
look to Bahrain where UK armored
vehicles were involved in putting down
the Democracy protest in all of these
cases when the truth comes to light it's
only because of the good work of
journalists and activists on the ground
it's not because the UK government holds
up its hands willingly and um admits
that it's done all of these terrible
things no it says that uh it seeks
assurances uh that uh the weapons we're
selling will not be used for external
aggression or internal repression which
begs the question what are they there
for what's the weapons for if they're
not going to be used in either of these
two things well an interesting example
of this is Israel as well because in
2009 ven foreign secretor David
millerand gave a speech from the house
of comments where he said it was almost
certain UK arms had been used in the
bombardment of Gaza um in 2008 2009 and
of of course at the time he said we will
try and reflect on this in all future
arm sales and of course nothing changed
and then actually last summer never
trust a Millie band then last summer um
UK arms again were almost certainly used
against the people of Gaza we know this
because the Department of Business
Innovation and skills did its own report
which found that there were 12 licenses
for weapons which were in their words
likely to have been used against people
in Gaza and I don't think that we're
going to suddenly see the UK stopping
exports to Israel even though it's shown
time and time again it will use UK
exports against the people of Gaza and
breaking the rules that the British
government says that it uh imposes but
hey some things never change but I must
say your campaign is magnificent how do
people support the campaign against the
arm straight well if you go onto our
website there's an awful lot of
different activities and events that are
coming up all across the country we've
got really strong local active groups
but we are going to be mobilizing and
and and campaigning for the D against
the dce armare when it rolls into town
this September as well um there's also a
lot of other things in website you can
actually see a list of every single UK
arms export that has been approved since
2008 so you can see the co the see
exactly what the weapons we've been
selling to these terrible regimes are
Andrew we need you in Parliament good
young Scotsman that coming up after the
break if the arms trade is bad for your
health wait until you hear about the
transatlantic trade and investment
partnership ttip if you stay tuned you
surely
will welcome back to Sputnik the ttip
negotiations between the EU and the US
have been almost wholly conducted in
secret and that's the shape of things to
come if the agreement is reached yet its
consequences for you are far more
profound than the recent general
election for example where at least
everything was out on the table ttip
would vastly extend the scale of
privatization into health education
water services and many other areas it
would give special corporate courts the
power to override National parliaments
and take us further down the road to an
orwellian future where what is called
freedom is in fact A New World Order of
corporate slavery joining us to discuss
it is agitator and chief in the campaign
against ttip Samuel L Samuel A Fine
title who you agitating on behalf of how
broad is the opposition to this
agreement and how close are we to its
conclusion there's about 300 plus
organizations across Europe campaigning
against this right now we've just
reached two just breached two the two
million barrier in signatures from
across Europe opposing it um and it's is
is it close to coming to a conclusion
that's a very big question we don't know
is they're just coming up to the 10th
round of the negotiations it's been
going on for a couple of years already
and I would say that every six months
that goes by without it being concluded
probably puts on another year to the
time frame so far we've been holding it
up um quite are there any European
governments openly opposed to it there's
no European governments openly opposed
to the whole deal there are European
governments who have concerns about
specific aspects for example Austria who
um you mentioned in your introduction
the corporate courts aspect which maybe
we'll elaborate on in a little bit but
they they are specifically opposed to
that is unanimity in the EU required for
this treaty um yes it is in terms of the
council so they would all have to vote
it through whilst there are governments
against it the aim of the campaign is
really to try and derail it before it
gets to that stage so the uh European
Union uh is one side the United States
is the other is it overwhelmingly
popular there no so uh as friends of the
earth we also have a group um in the USA
and there at the moment there's a huge
campaign there against FasTrack
Authority which is another it's called
FTA there's lots of acronyms in the
trade world and what they're campaigning
against is giving the president the sole
authority to sign off trade agreements
without it going through Congress and
the reason they're so worried about this
is because of ttip but also its sister
agreement the trans-pacific partnership
with the US which the US is negotiating
with a many countries including Chile uh
Vietnam and um Japan and there's a lot
of concerns on the US side as well so
it's very much not one of those things
of us in Europe just being anti- us
there's consensus amongst Civil Society
on both sides of the Atlantic that these
deals aren't good for people and should
be stopped well summarize for us just
exactly uh how bad it would be for us at
its worst it would be very bad so I'd
say when we look at things at Friends of
the earth we say our approach when it
comes to the economy is we want the
economy to work for people for the
environment M for the planet and we look
at ttip and we think that would work
against it uh if I can give some
examples maybe of the different things
that could we could expect uh we could
ex businesses and the us having a lot
more influence on our laws we've already
seen some of this happen during the
course of the trade agreement uh
negotiations so we've seen um
environmental law changed energy law
change so that we can import so that
more tarand will be imported from the US
and Canada to the European Union and
that was um under pressure whilst these
negotiations were going on we've seen
chemicals that are endocrine disrupting
chemicals they're uh used in pesticides
we've seen the European commission
decision to ban those being cancelled
because of pressure from the US whilst
these trade agreements going on and then
also when you get to the isds mechanism
the investor State dispute mechanism
which is these corporate courts which
sees legal
sovereignty being giving away I suppose
from the national Judiciary and
decisions are taken in arbitration
panels with usually three lawyers um for
vast amount of money to give an example
of this uh Philip Morris is currently
suing the Australian government for
bringing in plain package cigarettes uh
a fracking company in Canada is
currently suing the Canadian government
for bring in a moratorium on fracking
for $250 million these are Under other
trade agreements so that one I just
mentioned is under NAFTA um at the
moment these this mechanism does exist
in some agreements the EU EU has got
actually quite a lot about 3,000 but
there's none
with the US so it'd be bringing in a
whole different dimension and they have
a different attitude to many things
there yes uh GM food for example is very
much bigger there than here almost
nowhere in Europe is it uh being openly
promoted and sold whereas in the US it's
becoming
hegemonic uh the attitude to safety
standards chemicals pesticides and so on
uh would' all be profoundly and
negatively affected if us standards
absolutely became uh implementable here
and by courts irrespective of what
Parliament thought yeah exactly from
your examples it shows that the
multinationals are basically dictating
our our countries then I it is very
interesting so when you bring these
concerns so You' just mentioned to the
European commission who are in charge of
negotiating this they say oh don't worry
you know these aren't on the table these
is isues but you can actually see from
the US in the media their publicity what
their aggressive interests are what do
they want to get out of this and it's
exactly the things you've mentioned and
in any trade agreement it's a
negotiation there's got to be compromise
and we just don't trust the European
commission not to compromise because the
European commission is also we're not a
sort of benevolent partner in this we
want things from the us we'd like access
to their public procurement markets for
European companies where they have
something called bi americ there which
is to try and Source local food for
schools we don't like that so we'd it's
hard for me to believe that we wouldn't
trade off one one the other yeah
absolutely there's already concern in
this country it's why we've got a
referendum coming up on the European
Union about sovereignty being sucked
from the national Parliament to the
European level much less responsive at
least in theory to public opinion uh if
the European Union then hands on much of
that sovereignty to corporate Courts for
example uh then where does that leave
the ordinary citizen in European
countries leaves them uh up a gum tree
tell me how the privatization issues
arise from this so the privatization
issues I think the first initial concern
was that the pro that the NHS would be
part of the deal that we would be trying
to sell off bits of it to the US um we
interestingly met with K Clark um last
year and he said why are you worried
about this we're doing it anyway but the
so the so the debate is actually a bit
more nuanced than that so whenever you
bring whenever this issue comes up with
the European commission they say no it's
not on the table look we've said this or
this and this but actually it's the
corporate courts bit that people are
concerned about the the worry is that
services that have been privatized will
become prohibit it'll become
prohibitively expensive to renationalize
them in the future because these courts
which happen outside of the national
Judiciary can you can get sued for a
vast amount of money the highest award
ever was $50 billion you know so so so
actual people's concerns are are less
based in the idea that it will mean that
the governments have to privatize
although if they wanted to this
agreement would facilitate them doing it
it's to do with the fact that you would
not then be able to reverse it the uh
British courts of course uh reach
decisions which are appealable uh
sometimes appealable on several levels
and right up to the European level these
corporate courts will they have a right
of appeal and if so to whom as it stands
they do not have an appeal mechanism
this is this is one of the big
discussions going on in Europe at the
moment of they're trying to Rebrand
these corporate courts to make them
palatable and one of the ideas is that
there might be an appeal mechanism
although this is all entirely on the
Europe right so this is entirely on the
European side we don't know what the US
would agree to or not so they might not
agree to this I think something that's
quite interesting is the UK government
um back in 2013 I think April
commissioned a study um from the lsse
the study was to look into what would be
the benefit of having these corporate
courts this isds mechanism to the UK in
an agreement with the US and the
conclusions were quite interesting it
was that there would be no political
Gain No economic gain some economic risk
some political risk so and then this
study was rarely heard from ever again I
mean it's on their website if you know
where to look for it so so government's
very aware that this isds mechanism
these corporate courts don't do what
they will achieve which is the idea is
it'll bring in more investment there's
no evidence of this so if this ttip
reaches agreement how will this affect
the rest of the world so one of the
drivers I suppose behind the ttip
agreement is that the WTO has s has
stalled effectively developing countries
have said we're not getting a good deal
out of this we want we want it to be a
bit fairer and that's obviously stalled
all trade negotiations at the WTO level
so these this big bilateral agreement is
it's promoted by them as such it's the
idea they want to set a global standard
for trade for the rest of the the rest
of the world so there's a there's a
chance that other countries would then
be able to join it but you know there'll
be some elements of trade diversion
where stuff that was imported from the
rest of the world before will now be
imported from the US but I suppose it's
more of a it's more for me an idea of if
you are doing something like this for
the rest of the world because the idea
of having trade with the US isn't in and
of itself offensive you know of course
not there's lots of things we'd like so
say they went into the trade agreement
saying these are the highest standards
we can get that work and we want to
bring both of our standards to that
level and we've both got as governments
The public's trust that this is
sincerely what we're trying to achieve
there would be no issue but we're
there's a worry that especially if
there's isds in this agreement this is
setting a global standard that the rest
of the world is trying to remove
themselves from Indonesia have are
trying to get out of all trade
agreements with this isds mechanism in
South Africa as well because they've
seen it to be harmful and if it's in
ttip
I mean it's the global standard for the
next 20 years God save us the best of
luck uh with your campaign how do people
uh sign up for it uh there's many groups
working on it so Friends of the earth
war on want uh World development
movement now called Global Justice now
38 degrees the union so on all of our
websites you can find it if you
specifically want to go through the
friends of the earth website ww. foe.
co.uk ttip excellent thanks Sam for
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that and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's rattling gri about
this British arm straight Joe Cook says
cheer leaders in Chief for the British
arms trades are Prince Charles and
Andrew their business trips to Saudi
soaked in blood well and David Cameron
too of course I mean there was one
occasion in the last Parliament where
David Cameron from the dispatch box
denounced me as a friend of dictators
before getting onto an airplane that
very afternoon and flying to Saudi
Arabia and Bahrain openly to sell them
weapons about the ttip uh question uh
Free Press says ttip is backed by three
main UK parties it backs the question
who they really pres represent not the
public surely and that's all that we've
got for this week which alas means
that's the end of the show you can stay
in touch with us on Twitter rtor Sputnik
or on Facebook at Sputnik on Russia
today it's goodbye from me G and from me
George Galloway it's been marvelous
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