Boycotting the census
Symon Hill investigates the reasons why people are choosing to boycott the census
Support is growing for a boycott of this year’s census over the involvement of a US-based multinational arms company. The contract for co-ordinating the census has been awarded to Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest arms firms.
Lockheed are frequently criticised for arming oppressive regimes and for their central role in supplying the US armed forces. Their bid for the census contract arose from their work on intelligence and data collection.
The census, which is conducted in the UK every ten years, will be carried out on 27 March.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) have criticised Lockheed’s involvement. The geographer Geoff Meaden, who recently retired from the University of Kent, has urged support for people who refuse to participate in the census.
He said: ‘There will be a range of ethical reasons why people may not wish to comply, from concerns about the security of their personal data to not wishing to boost the profits of a weapons manufacturer’.
Lili Kathleen Bright, who attends Westminster Meeting, told the Friend that she had only recently heard about Lockheed’s involvement. She is now encouraging a boycott. ‘I can’t in good conscience participate, knowing what I know,’ she explained.
Not all who oppose the arms trade are backing the boycott. CAAT say they recognise their supporters will make individual decisions about whether to comply. Simon Beard of West Sussex Area Meeting told the Friend he is struggling with the question, because ‘the census is a very important way to help decision-makers obtain the information they need’. But he does not want to ‘assist an arms dealer to make money’.
He explained, ‘I think I will fill in the form and make sure that I submit it eventually, but I will not do so at the first time of asking. Instead I shall be deliberately and obviously obstructive.’
The Green Party of England and Wales campaigned heavily in 2008 against the award of the contract to Lockheed. But a spokesperson for the party has now told the Friend that they oppose a boycott because ‘the census is extremely important and needs to be accurate’. This view may be controversial even within the Greens, for whom Geoff Meaden has twice been a parliamentary candidate.
Glen Watson of the Office for National Statistics insisted there were ‘stringent operational and contractual processes and safeguards in place to maintain data security and confidentiality’. But Geoff Meaden is not convinced. He said: ‘We have no legal precedents as to whether, under the pretext of national security, this census information can be acquired by the US government’.
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