Here’s how you set up your own arms dealing company: 1) register a name with Companies House; 2) get a phone and email; 3) start contacting arms manufacturers. It’s that simple. So simple, in fact, that comedian-activist Thomas got a bunch of schoolkids to do it. His group of 15-18-year-olds were able to buy items such as thumb cuffs, while over in Ireland, where there are next to no laws governing global arms brokering, they set up shipments of Pakistani grenade launchers to Syria and South African shotguns to Israel.
Somewhat worrying – and just a couple of the arms legislation loopholes Thomas’s stunts have uncovered. Fans of his stand-up and TV show may recall other tales collated here – hijacking arms industry exhibition-goers, posing as a PR for torturing regimes – but there’s new stuff too, not least plenty of stats-backed polemic.
Thomas argues that although the UK has some of the strictest laws governing the sale of arms in the world, there’s an abundance of gaps to climb through. Our government ignores its own Code of Conduct to sanction the arming of Indonesia against East Timor, Morocco against Western Sahara and Israel against Palestine. Why? Forget what you’ve heard about weapon sales benefiting the economy. Arms export jobs are subsidised by £13,000 a year each. More to blame is the powerful lobby of arms companies such as BAE Systems .
The laughs don’t come quite so thick and fast as in Thomas’s stand-up, and you miss his thunderous stage presence, but this is a very readable account. And it might even get a few things changed. After hearing Thomas’s kids’ findings, the Irish government said it would introduce arms brokering laws by the end of the year.
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