Top Tory attacks 'woke' bankers as he brands UK arms industry 'power for good'

02 October 2023 , 15:48

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BAE Systems are building the RAF's sixth-generation fighter jet, Tempest (Image: BAE Systems)

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps urged investors to pump cash into arms firms as he hit out at “woke” bankers.

The Cabinet Minister blasted campaigns encouraging fund managers to withdraw money from companies which manufacture and supply weapons. He branded the British arms industry a “power for good” whose products are deployed to defend innocent people in war zones.

Mr Shapps insisted they helped save lives - pointing to their use on the battlefield as Ukraine tries to oust Russian troops ordered across the border by Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin. He highlighted how campaigners often study firms’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies to assess their business practices over ethical issues, including investing in the arms industry.

Grant Shapps was addressing a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester (James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock)

“People who think that from an ESG, from some sort of woke banking, perspective we should not be investing in the defence industry and we should somehow disinvest funds, I think they need to take a dose of reality and see what’s happening in Europe, in the most immoral, barbaric way, where a democratic country was invaded in an illegal war by Putin, and they should actually check themselves when they try to suggest to their fund managers that they shouldn’t be investing in things which save lives, which helps to secure freedom and values which we should all in the Conservative family put as our absolute principle beliefs,” Mr Shapps told a Conservative Home fringe meeting at the Tory Party conference in Manchester. "I’m very keen to put on record that investing in defence is a morally right thing to do. It saves lives.”

Mr Shapps told activists: “I genuinely believe the UK defence sector is a power for good and it helps to defeat evil.” He feared there was a “huge risk from disinvestment” as he attacked the “misinformed view that innocent people somehow don’t deserve to be protected by the military”.

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Ben Glaze