Ireland – AIA: Harland & Wolff – Building Britain’s Wars
We hereby share a statement from Anti-imperialist Action Ireland, published on their Instagram on November 3.
At Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard this week, British Labour Party ministers opened a new hall to build support ships for British aircraft carriers, making no secret of its purpose. Luke Pollard, the so-called “Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry,” declared that the British Ministry of Defence has a “single purpose” and that is to prepare Britain’s armed forces for war. He went on to boast that this places the occupied six counties of Ireland “at the very heart” of those plans.
This is not an isolated development. The French arms manufacturer, Thales, already supplies missiles to the British War Machine from its plants in Castlereagh and Annacloy, County Down, with proposed further expansion at both sites. Meanwhile, Moyola Precision Engineering is growing its operations in mid-Ulster. Piece by piece, the occupied Six Counties continues to be converted into an arsenal for British Imperialism.
Recent figures speak for themselves. The British Ministry of Defence has spent £460 million in the Six Counties over the last year, a 63% rise in just twelve months. Almost £100 million has gone into this latest development at Harland & Wolff alone. British ministers parade these figures as positive investment, but in truth they lay bare where Britain’s true priorities lie and that is in the service of capitalism and imperialism.
Above all, this is a stark reminder if ever that Ireland remains an occupied land. Over a century after partition was illegally imposed on this country, Britain still clings to the six counties, not out of any loyalty to its people but because the North continues to serve its colonial agenda and military interests. Now, with the Free State establishment in Leinster House moving to scrap the Triple Lock, both partitionist states are marching in lockstep with British, NATO and US imperialism. Occupation in the North and collaboration in the South serve the same imperialist agenda island-wide.
AIA oppose the Imperialist arms trade in Ireland in all its forms. There can never be peace, neutrality and no freedom while Britain or any other foreign power, continues to occupy Ireland. End the arms trade. End the occupation.
Saor Éire Anois – An Phoblacht Abú!
