The UK Arms Trade

Britain continues to sell arms to countries that commit human rights abuses and is now ranked second in the world for weapons sales, a report shows, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) found.

 The UK was second only to the United States in selling weapons in 2014. UK weapons sales made up 10.4 percent of the total $401 billion worth of arms sold around the world.

Britain’s biggest arms company, BAE Systems, is the world’s third largest seller of weapons with over $25.7 billion in sales last year. Other UK arms firms in the top 100 include Babcock (25), Serco (49), Cobham (53), QuinetiQ (72), GKN (70), and Meggitt (87).

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) spokesperson, Andrew Smith, explained, “These companies thrive off conflict and rely on compliant governments in order to do so. BAE Systems, for example, does a huge amount of business in the Middle East, and its fighter jets are central to the destruction that has been unleashed on the people of Yemen.”