CAAT in Scotland, along with allies such as Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee, Amnesty in Scotland, and local activist groups, have been campaigning for an end to Scottish Enterprise’s funding of arms companies for years. In recent years, Scottish Enterprise has provided funds for numerous arms companies, including those with a significant role in arming Israel, such as BAE Systems, Leonardo, and Raytheon UK. Leonardo in particular produces components for the F-35 combat aircraft, used by Israel to bomb Gaza, at its factory in Edinburgh. While SE claimed this funding was to support
“diversification”, this is doubtful, and at least one grant to Leonardo supported the development of a radar used for both civil and military purposes.
While details of the Scottish Government’s new policy still need to be clarified, and pressure must be maintained to ensure that they don’t find loopholes and excuses, this is undoubtedly a huge win for CAAT’s tireless campaigners in Scotland, as well as for the campaign for solidarity with Palestine and an end to the Gaza genocide.
There is a downside – the First Minister also announced that, in light of the goal of supporting Ukraine and the UK’s own defence, a previous ban on the use of Scottish Enterprise grants to directly fund the production of “munitions” will be lifted – although there are not many arms companies that aren’t in some way involved in arming Israel, and which therefore should, in principle, be ruled out by the new policy. Again, it will be vital to watch what this means in practice, and to hold the Scottish Government to account.
In the meantime, congratulations and thank you to all our supporters in Scotland and throughout the UK who have taken action on this!
Charles and the CAAT Team | 
