"Home Office accused of profiting from refugees’ misery after hosting arms and border security fair" 16 March 2022

CAMPAIGNERS have accused...[Britain’s] Home Office of profiting from refugees’ misery by hosting an arms fair displaying border security technology this week.

Security and Policing 2022, an annual Home Office-funded event in Farnborough, closes today, having seen arms firms, surveillance companies and police chiefs rub shoulders with ministers and civil servants.

Journalists and the public are not permitted to attend the secretive arms fair , which has been running for 40 years.

...Anti-arms and refugee rights campaigners condemn the fair for being “at the heart of the hostile environment and repression.”

Among the 23 arms exhibitors at this year’s fair is arms giant BAE Systems, French military equipment firm Thales and Italian company Leonardo, as well as Britain’s Border Force. Foreign governments invited to attend include those of Israel, Morocco, Iraq and Egypt...

Israeli cyber-surveillance firms were also amongst the exhibitors...

"The Home Office should not be facilitating the sale and commercial integration of these technologies into the institutions of a democracy, it should be implementing a ban of the two-way arms trade with Israel.” — Ben Jamal, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on individual companies and attendance at this event. Attendance does not constitute support for anyone’s organisation.”