A Green Party MP has been criticised by former defence ministers for backing a pro-Palestine protest outside a factory in her constituency.
In a post on X, Brighton Pavilion MP Sian Berry shared a video of herself speaking outside L3 Harris’s factory which she said “makes parts for planes that are being used today in Israel to bomb Palestinians”.
The site has been targeted by pro-Palestine activists, including Palestine Action, for designing and developing parts for the US-made F-35 fighter jet.
L3Harris’s website states that it “provides the F-35 with cockpit communications, data processing, sophisticated avionics and electronic warfare technology, as well as clean, pneumatic carriage and release racks that support the aircraft’s low observable profile.”
Berry celebrated the decision by Brighton Council last year to deny L3 Harris planning permission for their site in Brighton.
In the video, filmed on 1 May but posted to X on Tuesday, Berry celebrated that she and activists had kept the factory shut. “The workers are getting a day off,” she said.
Former Conservative defence secretary Grant Shapps, who is Jewish, said of the pro-Palestine activists: “All they have achieved is to wrench out a critical cog in Britain’s defensive machinery – handing Vladimir Putin and every other hostile power a free gift.”
“Weakening our supply chain doesn’t halt conflict; it emboldens those who thrive on it. Undermining skilled British jobs and Nato security for the sake of performative virtue-signalling is not principled, it’s dangerously naïve – and the Kremlin will be raising a glass to their useful idiocy,” he told the JC.
Lord Spellar, who served as armed forces minister in Tony Blair’s government, accused the Green Party of showing “a complete disregard for the employment of British workers.”
“The defence industry is enormously important for our economy and jobs as well as maintaining the security of our country, as has been pointed out a number of times by union leaders Sharon Graham [general secretary of Unite] and Gary Smith [general secretary of the GMB].
When contacted for comment, Berry told the JC that: “The Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza and international arrest warrants have been issued for some of its leaders. The UK government is complicit in allowing arms to be shipped there. Protesters have every right to peacefully oppose this."
At Prime Minister’s Questions earlier on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer faced calls from an independent pro-Gaza MP to “end all UK military cooperation with Israel”, including sales of parts of the F-35 fighter jet.
When the government announced a partial ban on arms sales to Israel, the F-35 was exempted.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said at the time that: “The effects of suspending all licences for the F-35 programme would undermine the global F-35 supply chain that is vital for the security of the UK, our allies, and Nato.”
The programme, led by US defence firm Lockheed Martin, supplies jets to 19 countries including the US, UK, Italy, Canada, Australia, and Israel.
Defence experts have previously told the JC that imposing conditions on just one state partner in the F-35 programme could see the UK frozen out of it completely.
In an interview in August, Spellar told the JC that being seen as an unreliable defence partner would be a “disaster”.
Earlier this year, the government announced plans to use Britain’s defence industry to help generate economic growth and turn the UK into a “defence industrial superpower”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told MPs in the Spring Statement: “I want to do more with our defence budget, so that we can buy, make and sell things here in Britain. I want to give our world-leading defence companies and those who work in them further opportunities to grow, and to create jobs in Britain, as military spending rightly increases all across Europe”.
L3 Harris has been contacted for comment.
