Defence – an alternative view

An Alternative Defence Review was launched on 23 May ahead of the government’s strategic defence review published on 11 June. This originated from a motion at the RMT union’s 2024 AGM.

This resolved that “Peace is a Labour Movement issue”. And it declared that there is no contradiction between working for peace and defending good jobs. What a contrast with the talk at the NATO summit which took place on 24-25 June, and where industry is valued only as a means of making war.

No answer

RMT pointed out that jobs in the defence industry may be the last remaining manufacturing jobs in an area. But equally the defence industry could not be the answer to industrial decline.

The union committed to work with other trade unionists and peace organizations to produce an alternative view, calling for a “‘genuine open public debate on the UK’s increasing militarisation”.

‘The union calls for genuine debate about increasing militarisation.’

The document was produced by trade union members from RMT, Unison, and Unite, many in a personal capacity. They worked alongside CND and a number of academics with knowledge of defence and economics.

The review analyses the “new war narrative”, focusing on the Boris Johnson’s 2019 government emphasis on increased defence spending. This led to it finalising the AUKUS treaty with the US and Australia.

Commitment

AUKUS effectively increases militarisation of the seas around China. Australia will be able to source nuclear-powered submarines for deployment in the Pacific. The Starmer government firmly continues that commitment.

A whole section is devoted to the “The growth and jobs myth”, anticipating correctly that Starmer would push the line that “defence is an engine of growth”. Yet much of the profit generated by the defence sector is never reinvested in Britain.

The defence sector’s biggest firm, BAE Systems, is effectively a joint US-UK company. The majority of BAE’s capital is invested in the US and the majority of its major shareholders are US investment companies.

Distortion

The review also sets out why the claim that defence is a jobs engine is a distortion. Currently, the number of workers employed in the defence sector is around five per cent of the total in manufacturing.

It argues that the strategy of relying on BAE Systems to protect jobs in Barrow “has comprehensively failed the working class of Barrow, and South Cumbria”.

Increasing demand for advanced military equipment, such as the Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft or Type 45 naval destroyers, did not significantly boost numbers of directly employed workers. Instead it increased sub-contracting in the global supply chain, which is far less well unionised, and not always based in Britain.

“…a defence strategy should focus on how to avoid war.”

This alternative review says that “a defence strategy should focus on how to avoid war” and mentions the importance of maintaining international relations and diplomacy. Yet it says nothing about how Britain should defend its own territory, coastline or the fishing and maritime trade and what economic production and jobs would be involved in that process.

Despite that omission, this is an important contribution to the “genuine open public debate” which the union hoped for.