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BAE Systems preys upon working-class youth in the name of ‘charity’

BAE Systems preys upon working-class youth in the name of ‘charity’

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Arms manufacturer BAE Systems is ploughing hundreds of millions into educational outreach and youth centres, to funnel young people into the ‘defence’ sector. We say: No to the militarisation of the youth! Expropriate these war profiteers!

Since 2020, BAE Systems – the arms manufacturer and genocide accomplice – has increased its investment into “education outreach” year-on-year. The cumulative total now soars above £1 billion, with a predicted increase of £230 million by the end of this year.

This funding includes taking on thousands of apprentices; opening a third multi-million-pound academy; and launching several youth centres across the North of England – which have been dubbed “Youth Zones”.

The weapons manufacturer’s goal is to open a “Maker’s Zone” in each of these youth zones: a room focused on engineering skills. Here, children from the age of eight can receive access to industry-standard technology such as 3D printers, vacuum formers, laser cutters, and flight simulators.

In Blackburn, BAE says their investment “educates young people on climate change issues and how they can take an active role in contributing to a greener planet”.

And a £500,000 donation to Portsmouth’s youth services, explains BAE’s managing director, is simply a commitment to local communities, offering young people a “safe place to go”.

How heartwarming that these war profiteers’ care so much for our kids’ futures.

Charity?

Unfortunately, none of BAE’s cuddly statements or charitable gestures contain even an ounce of honest intentions.

On BAE’s website, one statement explains clearly how “the company’s award-winning early careers schemes are vital to developing the talent pipeline needed to deliver critical national security” (our emphasis).

In a document submitted to the parliamentary Youth Unemployment Committee, BAE Systems states Britain has “an ageing workforce demographic” and therefore “utilising apprenticeships is… an excellent tool to bring new young people into the organisation.”

As it happens, BAE workers at a number of sites underwent strike action last year, which resulted in a victory of a six percent pay increase and extra leave. And this was after the bosses attempted to stop the strike through a failed court injunction, which led to further walkouts. It’s possible that BAE is keen to get more workers into the industry partly to reduce the bargaining power that the existing high-skilled workforce has.

BAE doesn’t hang about waiting until young people start thinking about their careers, either. These manipulative warhawks start early: they target children in primary schools, where BAE boldly promotes its weapons in partnership with the RAF!

Defence minister Luke Pollard has applauded BAE’s “record-breaking numbers” – cheering on the almost 7,000 graduates who now “will be at the forefront of building warships, fighter jets, and munitions.”

Plaster on a wound

Since the 2008 crisis, successive Tory and Labour governments have cut funding for youth services by a disgraceful 76 percent – that’s £1.3 billion, before factoring in inflation.

Meanwhile, one million young people today are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). This crisis is even worse in those places where decades of deindustrialisation have battered the prospect of good engineering or research jobs.

In this context, arms manufacturers like BAE have spied an opportunity to weasel their way in and play the philanthropist. In reality they are preying on young people, who are struggling to find jobs and opportunities.

Burnham’s government thinks that pumping money into ‘defence’ is a good solution to Britain’s stagnating economy and unemployment crisis. They say their Typhoon fighter jet order for Britain’s military is “anticipated to be worth £4.6 billion to BAE… helping to sustain 20,000 jobs across the UK”.

Essentially, they tell us that it is a good thing that children are getting driven towards an industry run by and for war criminals, because it promotes ‘good manufacturing jobs’!

But how much worse will the NEET crisis get when the capitalists and their governments continue to throw billions at bombs, drones, and planes rather than investing in socially useful production? This money is effectively poured down the drain.

Last year BAE Systems’ operating profit alone stood at £2.9 billion – some nine percent higher than in 2024, and more than twice the £1.3 billion that has been cut from youth services by the government since 2008.

That £230 million thrown at youth centres by BAE is therefore nothing more than a cheap plaster on a wound.

These war profiteers must be expropriated – their factories retooled, and their research repurposed – so that we can really invest in the future of working-class youth.

Apprenticeships for annihilation

Áine Bethell and Ben Campbell, Bristol

Andy Burnham is trying to kill two birds with one nuke.

With the promise of £8 billion for the nuclear submarine programme – which he claims will produce 20,000 apprenticeships (although that is over the course of a decade!) – he thinks he can placate both the warhawks demanding remilitarisation at the top of the state, and sections of the working class that want decent jobs.

Unfortunately for him, Burnham’s destruction will be mutually assured by both sides.

On his right flank, the Prime Minister may find that his nuclear gimmick is a costly diversion; one unlikely to satisfy his general staff. Rear Admiral Philip Mathias, for example, claims Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme.

The Trident missile programme has not had a successful launch since 2012. And yet, it costs a fifth of the defence budget – with projections that it will reach a quarter.

Meanwhile, the British military is in a dire state. The naval fleet is aging and in disrepair. And for many military chiefs, trying to “project power” with an expensive nuclear deterrent that does not work risks blowing up in Britain’s face – should the ruling class be compelled to defend its interests in a real war.

On his left flank, Burnham may find that his empty promises are no more satisfactory. Even the point of providing apprenticeships rather than jobs is enough to lift eyebrows.

The young worker who becomes an apprentice is a doubly enticing prospect for the bosses of private defence enterprises who will be engaged in this scheme. Not only will they be able to pay a lower wage, but then get subsidised by the government for doing so.

And when the apprentice graduates, what then will they get as reward for this super-exploitation?

Nationally, no more than 65 percent of apprentices actually get a job with the company they trained at when they qualify. Even then, Andy’s plan for a measly 2,500 new apprenticeships per year barely covers the 150,000 fall in apprenticeships since 2016. Yet Burnham talks of a “reindustrialised Britain” for “every young person”.

Then still, you may think that some apprenticeships are better than nothing. But in reality, Burnham’s plans are really a case of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’, only to rob Paul again at the other end.

Indeed, Burnham’s £8 billion for nuclear barely scratches the surface of the £205 billion needed to fully revamp the system – let alone other defence commitments. In other words, this is just the thin end of the wedge.

And the more the Prime Minister seeks to increase ‘defence’ spending, the more he will exacerbate the debt crisis; fuel inflation; cut the welfare budget; and divert resources away from the productive sectors of the economy, to be pumped instead into expensive scrap metal.

In other words, we will all be worse off in the long run under Burnham’s militarism.

Unfortunately, this perspective – and one of a class fight against Burnham – is absent among the leaders of the labour movement, who either speak in pacifist phrases, or subserviently bow down before Burnham’s bombs hoping they will provide more jobs.

Our class desperately needs a leadership that is ready to go to war – and blow up the entire capitalist system with it.

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