Dear friends, 

Outside of the United States, the UK is the only other “number one partner” in the F-35 fighter jet programme. F-35s are used to drop 2000lb bombs over Gaza, and were recently used by the US military in its attacks on Venezuela. The F-35 is a jet of genocide and American military intervention. Take action now and email your MP to push for the UK to leave this destructive programme.

The British arms industry plays a very significant role in the F-35 programme. Fifteen percent of every F-35 is produced in the UK. BAE Systems, Leonardo, L3 Harris, Rolls-Royce and Mission Systems Wimborne all produce key components and subsystems for F-35s across the country. 

While the UK government suspended some military export licences to Israel in September 2024, on the grounds of a risk that UK arms might be used in violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, they made a specific exemption, known as the “F-35 carve-out”, for components for the F-35 supplied to Israel via the global supply pool including the United States, claiming that the F-35 programme was critical to global 'peace and stability'. 

There is a long history of this type of framing as a justification for furthering warfare, so it is no surprise that the British state has the audacity to claim that “peace and stability” necessitates continued involvement in the F-35 programme, used in the continued bombing of Gaza and recent abduction of Venezuela’s president and his wife.

Our government’s role in the F-35 fighter jet programme is a key way in which the British state has remained complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Furthermore, Britain’s powerful position in the F-35 jet programme is fundamental to how closely ingrained the British arms industry is with the American one. This contributes to the alignment of British and American foreign policy. 

The Gaza genocide has exposed the limits of international legal systems, which have thus far failed to end the atrocities Israel and the global arms trade are perpetuating in the region. International law is evidently enforced selectively, if at all. The same democratic, western countries, such as the UK, which have allowed Israel to evade accountability, have now been speaking out about the importance of international law in regards to the US’s aims to annex Greenland.

Although this week Trump stated that no military force would be used and called off his proposed tariffs on the eight European countries which opposed his plans, his desire for control of the territory remains. There has not been a similar outpouring of European government condemnation against the US’s attacks on Venezuela. 

It would appear that western Europe is only willing to challenge the United States when its aggression creeps to territories western Europe has its own colonial stake in, such as Greenland, which Denmark still holds as an “autonomous territory”. Greenland’s majority Inuit population know all too well that there is “no such thing as a better coloniser” as they oppose American intervention while still fighting for their full independence from Denmark. Denmark is also part of the F-35 programme. 

CAAT could not continue to campaign without everyone who supports this work. Thank you for your role in this, whether that be sharing CAAT social media posts, taking part in demonstrations, organising events with CAAT, lobbying your MP and council, or protesting against arms companies. Your donations, if you are in a financial position to be able to consider this, are instrumental as well. 

Please support CAAT in our continuing work to STOP the arms trade by making a donation to keep CAAT Campaigning.

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Thank you for your continued support in resisting the deadly arms trade,

Zoe and all at Campaign Against Arms Trade