‘Overwhelming’ public opposition to the arms trade
The majority of adults in the UK oppose exporting arms to human rights abusers
Three-quarters of UK adults oppose the promotion of military exports to human rights abusers, a survey coinciding with the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2017 arms fair has found.
The polling of over 2000 adults, carried out by Opinium LLP, shows that seventy-six per cent of UK adults oppose the government’s role in promoting arms exports to countries with poor human rights records.
Sixty-three percent of people oppose arms sales to countries that are not democracies, and almost eight in ten (seventy-seven per cent) think the government should not promote arms sales to buyers that have been accused of violating international humanitarian law. Seventy-one per cent believe that the government should not be involved in organising arms fairs to which human rights abusing regimes are invited.
Andrew Smith, of Campaign Against Arms Trade, said: ‘The overwhelming majority of the public oppose arms exports to brutal and oppressive regimes, yet the arms sales keep flowing. None of this would be possible without the full support of civil servants and government ministers, who have consistently prioritised arms sales over human rights.
‘It is shameful that the government is welcoming despots and dictatorships to the UK to buy weapons.’
