Model motion for union branches

This union branch notes that:

1. The UK government promotes and subsidises arms exports. This has included running a government unit, the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), whose purpose was to market arms abroad. In July 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced this unit was to close.
2. UK arms have been used for repression in places like Indonesia and in conflicts including the invasion of Iraq.
3. The MoD's own estimates show that 65,000 jobs are sustained by military exports, just 0.2% of the national labour force. The MoD-York report, which was co-written by MoD economists, concluded in 2001 that halving military exports over a two-year period would lead to the loss of almost 49,000 jobs, but that 67,400 jobs would be created in non-military sectors over the following five years. The report concluded that "the economic costs of reducing defence exports are relatively small and largely one-off."
4. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) works to reduce arms exports, to encourage disinvestment from arms companies and to highlight the human rights consequences of selling UK weapons abroad.

This union branch believes that:

1. Selling arms to dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and other countries which abuse human rights actually sends a de facto message of approval to those regimes.
2. At the very least, the government should not be promoting and encouraging arms exports to any country.

This union branch resolves to:

1. Write to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, expressing its delight that DESO is to shut and its hope that this is the first step towards ending all subsidies for and promotion of arms exports.
2. Affiliate to CAAT at a rate of at least £30 per year, and to send out CAAT literature in the next mailing to branch members.

For further information on affiliating to CAAT and to book a CAAT speaker for your union branch, contact Ann Feltham (ann@caat.org.uk).