Burnham Addresses Arms Fair Attended by Israeli Weapons Firms
As Streeting promises to ramp up military spending.
by Joshua Carroll
27 July 2026
Andy Burnham addressed an arms fair attended by Israeli weapons firms, while his new defence secretary Wes Streeting promised military spending would take priority over other areas.
In a video address that played at the Farnborough airshow last week before Streeting gave a speech, the prime minister said: “We are going to reindustrialise this nation” and that increased spending on “defence” would play a key role.
Burnham wants to raise military spending from 2.6% of GDP to 3.5%, which would bring it to levels not seen since shortly after the end of the Cold War.
Streeting said in his speech that US president Donald Trump “is right” to tell European countries to spend more on defence. “That’s why we’ve committed £298bn over the next four years, including an additional £15bn on top of last year’s Spending Review settlement,” he said.
In a briefing after the speech, he said increased military spending would come at “an opportunity cost across government”, the Guardian reported.
Streeting was criticised last week after it was revealed he took over £50k from donors linked to Israeli weapons and to the military spytech firm Palantir.
Responding to Streeting and Burnham’s comments, journalist Paul Holden said on X: “This is stupid, short-sighted and ignorant. Defence spending is a terrible vector for economic growth, industrialisation and job creation… profits from defence spending will flow into the pockets of the 1%.
“If you are hoping to re-industrialise through defence spending it will cost you vastly more, engender huge waste through the industry’s addiction to single-source procurement and widespread corruption, and lock the UK into a defence export regime that ties us to authoritarian dictatorships.”
Martin Abrams, the Green party’s leader of Lambeth Council, wrote on X: “Why was Andy Burnham addressing a UK arms fair with several Israeli arms manufacturers in attendance?”
These firms included Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries – all named by Amnesty International as “contributing to Israel’s unlawful occupation, genocide or other crimes under international law”.
“This is what complicity in genocide looks like,” Abrams said.
Joshua Carroll is a writer and journalist.