Plaid Cymru once opposed arms fairs. Now it is helping organise one.

Adam Johannes⁩

In 2018, Plaid Cymru stood alongside campaigners who forced an arms fair out of Cardiff. Today, a Plaid Cymru-led Welsh Government is helping organise one.

That contradiction lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding the Defence Security Resilience Cymru summit – an event campaigners have dubbed, “The Welsh Government Arms Fair” – taking place on September 3 and 4 at the International Convention Centre at Celtic Manor in Newport.

Anti-war and anti-arms trade groups are calling on the Welsh Government to cancel the event.

This is not only about one event, but the gap between Plaid’s rhetoric in opposition and its decisions in government.

In 2018, I was arrested, handcuffed and detained in a police cell for 12 hours while peacefully protesting the Cardiff Arms Fair, an event that we successfully drove out of our city.

At the time, Plaid Cymru said it stood with campaigners like me challenging the global arms trade.

Plaid MPs condemned the event in Parliament, tabling an Early Day Motion that referred to the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology and Exportability (DPRTE) exhibition as the “Cardiff Arms Fair”. The motion expressed “disdain” for an event connecting government departments with “weapons dealers and suppliers” and criticised the British arms trade for fuelling conflicts that caused “significant civilian suffering from Gaza to Yemen”.

Leanne Wood, Plaid Cymru’s former leader, challenged Welsh Labour’s Ken Skates over his involvement, asking how support for what she called a “bazaar of brutality” could be compatible with Wales’s human rights obligations.

Heledd Fychan, now a Welsh Government minister, was also a vocal critic of the previous Welsh Government’s involvement in the DSEI arms fair in London, describing it as a “contemptible event”.

Only last year, Rhun ap Iorwerth criticised Eluned Morgan’s Labour administration for giving £500,000 of Welsh public money to an arms company whose products may have been used by Israel against Palestinian people. He called the decision “shocking and shameful”.

But now Plaid Cymru is in government, and the position has changed. Welsh public money is being used to co-organise an event involving General Dynamics, a major arms company connected to Israel’s military supply chain, while BAE Systems, another major arms manufacturer supplying Israel, will be exhibiting.

What changed? Did the weapons become less deadly? Did the suffering caused by war become less important? Or did political power make it easier to abandon principles that once appeared non-negotiable?

Arms Fair?

Some may question describing the summit as an ‘arms fair’. But this is the same term Plaid Cymru itself has used when opposing similar events

The organisers state that the summit will bring together more than 2,000 attendees and over 60 exhibitors to “connect buyers, suppliers and innovators across defence, security and national resilience”. They say the purpose is to help businesses gain a “competitive advantage” by entering defence supply chains and benefiting from increased UK military spending.

That is precisely what arms fairs do. They bring together governments, military institutions, weapons manufacturers and suppliers in order to expand arms production and sales.

The Welsh Government is co-organising the summit with Business in Focus, ADS Group and General Dynamics Land Systems.

ADS Group has been described by Campaign Against Arms Trade as the trade body for the UK arms industry, representing major weapons companies and promoting the interests of arms manufacturers.

General Dynamics Land Systems is a subsidiary of General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest arms companies. General Dynamics has supplied weapons to the Israeli military during what First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth has described as a genocide in Gaza. It has also supplied arms to authoritarian governments including Saudi Arabia.

By partnering with major arms suppliers to Israel, the Welsh Government risks contradicting Plaid Cymru’s own 2024 conference vote in favour of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including an arms embargo.

Military Expansion

But the issue goes beyond individual companies. It is about what kind of economy Wales should build.

The summit aligns Wales with the UK Government’s programme of military expansion and a wider global arms race. Across Europe, dramatic increases to military spending is being funded through deep cuts to public spending. Rearmament has consequences, and those consequences are being felt by ordinary people through austerity.

The Welsh Government argues that expanding the arms industry will create jobs. But research by the Transition Security Project suggests that while increased UK military spending will create some employment, funding it through cuts to other areas of public spending will result in nearly twice as many job losses overall.

Wales already has the highest unemployment rate of any UK nation. The skills of our engineers, technicians, scientists and workers should be directed towards socially useful production in areas such as renewable energy, public transport, affordable housing and rebuilding our public services.

Every pound diverted into excessive military spending is a pound not invested in tackling the real crises facing Wales, from climate change and poverty to the shortage of affordable housing and pressure on public services.

Wales also has the highest poverty rate in the UK. A government that claims to stand for social justice should stand for welfare, not warfare.

If the Welsh Government proceeds, the anti-war movement will organise a mass demonstration outside the summit on its opening morning. The message will be clear: Stop the Welsh Government Arms Fair.

If Plaid ministers are prepared to put their names to the arms trade, those opposed must make their opposition impossible to ignore.

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