Peace campaigners silenced as plug pulled on Armed Forces Day stall
Peace campaigners were banned from the national Armed Forces Day event at the last minute this year while the celebration of tanks, helicopters and weapons built to kill went ahead.
The event, held in Farnborough on 27/28 June and hosted by Rushmoor Borough Council, cost more than £680,000.
The cash-strapped council was on the hook to fund any shortfall for the event, which has been portrayed as family entertainment.
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Armed Forces Day promotes the idea that armed force is something to be celebrated.
- Dixe Wills, Quakers in Britain
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Arms companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ each paid £100,000 to sponsor it.
Dixé Wills, from Quakers in Britain, said: "Armed Forces Day promotes the idea that armed force is something to be celebrated.
“It's no wonder that some of the event's most prominent sponsors are arms companies: the only winners in the current global arms race."
Campaigners from Quakers in Britain, the Peace Pledge Union, ForcesWatch and Campaign Against Arms Trade had planned a stall inside the event, offering peace-themed craft activities for children as an alternative to the military hardware and recruitment on display.
But permission was withdrawn less than 24 hours before the event with the council claiming that the organising group was planning a 'protest' outside – actually a vigil the council had already approved.
Campaigners duly held the vigil in the designated area some way from the site. They say the decision meant an event celebrating deadly weaponry had no space for those calling for peace.
Rushmoor Borough Council leader, Gareth Williams, has apologised to Farnborough Quakers for any distress caused by the last minute cancellation of the peace stall.
Wills said: “As Quakers we believe that a lasting peace and mutual trust and understanding between nations cannot flourish when those same nations insist on threatening each other with violence backed up by ever increasing arsenals of weapons."
Nationally, the Ministry of Defence gave £480,000 in grants to Armed Forces Day events across the UK this year – money campaigners argue would be better spent on schools and hospitals.
They also raised concerns about children being encouraged to handle guns and sit in fighter aircraft, and about recruitment of under-18s: the UK is the only country in Europe still recruiting 16-year-olds into the armed forces.
Some councils have taken a different approach. York removed military equipment from its event last year, while Leicester banned under-16s from handling weapons at recruitment stalls.
Campaigners are calling on other councils to follow suit, and for the government to stop redirecting public money towards military spectacle.