HE SCOTT Report is not about secrecy or about Ministerial resignations. It is about British militarism.
Two-chirds of Britain's exports go to third world regimes with blood curdling human rights records • Saudi Arabla, In. donesia (carrying out genocide in East Timor) and Nigeria.
Every job in military industry that depends on exports is subsidised by the Government to the tune of E12,500 every year, total. ling El billion annually.
There is no economic rationale. It is about using arms sales to support imperialist ambitions. The Scott Report will create the political space for socialists to force such a debate onto the agenda If Britain does not export arms, it faces two problems as an imperialist power:
—To mobilise for war across technological quality and produccive capacity. i his can only be done at phenomenal cost, cen—Arms exports are also used to maintain friendly relations with murderous regimes who are allies.
These considerations led Margaret Thatcher to promote the military-industrial complex at the expense of civil manufacturing throughout the 1980s supported by a number of covert deals.
The documents released in the Matrix Churchill trial re. vealed that a stream of arms related equipment had gone to Iraq with Government knowledge. Also machine tools from panies had been installed in Iraqi munitions complexes from 1987 The truth began to emergearms sales were being used Tirsay to maintain good rele tions with the Iraqi regime, and later, to maintain a British security presence at the heart of the Iraqi military complex.
It was the strateric considerations that were and still are crucial to Britain's arms sales policy. international commission, led by an There are two possible explanations: either he is so scared of losing his Westminster majority that he will do anything suggested by taining a presence in Ireland is so important that to make even the most meagre Concess would risk splitting the ruling class even more. They accepted the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. the Downing Street Declaration and the Framework Document but when it came to the crunch they would not break from the Unionists.
In the post- War decolonisations the Labour Party, with the help of the US. was willing to step in and do what the Tories were incapable of doing. pulling out.
Labour under Blair seems totally incapable of providing options for the ruling class. The best he and Mo Mowlem can manage is to try to be more Unionist than the Tories. Another reason why Major went for war.
The Tories have clearly been stringing the Republicans along, softening them up for the negotiations everyone expected well before the 18 long months that have clapsed since the IRA dumped arms.
The Communiqué from Major and Taoiseach John Bruton in November.
Socialist Outlook 97 • February 17, 1996.