The F-35 Program in the North
Across the North, factories deeply connected in the F-35 program are manufacturing components for the very fighter jets currently being used to bomb Palestine and Iran. Israel relies heavily on Lockheed Martin F-35s to carry out its genocide, and our state and governments are thoroughly complicit.
Through Invest NI, the Department for the Economy has handed nearly £20 million in public funds to five companies involved in the F-35 program, including Moyola Precision Engineering (South Derry), Survitec (West Belfast), RLC (Newtownabbey and Belfast), and EAE (Belfast). Numerous other factories are involved in wider complicity, such as Raytheon subsidiary Collins Aerospace in Kilkeel producing seats for Israel's national airline, who have also received funds.
While the Sinn Féin Economy Minister has deflected criticism by claiming F-35 parts "don’t go direct to Israel", International law states the onus to ensure parts do not aid a genocide is on the manufacturer, and the BDS movement is clear that institutions and states connected to the F-35 program are worldwide BDS priority targets. The US oversight over certain factories, while jets are used by the US to bomb the likes of Iran makes their complicity undeniable, and further highlights Ireland’s role as a lackey to US capital.
Ireland’s complicity in the global arms trade, both north and south, cannot be understated. Beyond military aircraft and parts transiting through Shannon and Aldergrove airports, state funding for defense contractors remains deeply entrenched. With much evidence pointing to InvestNI and the government enticing factories not involved with the arms trade, to take up the more lucrative defence contracts.
Moyola Precision Engineering Factory
Moyola Precision Engineering in Castledawson manufactures airframes parts for F-35 warplanes, a fact which it boasted about publicly on its website in 2024, before campaign pressure from the Mid Ulster Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and others caused them to scrub their website and bury these details. It began these contracts relatively recently, considering the factory is decades old. Moyola PE has received over £5 million of taxpayer funds, and over half a million in historic rates relief. Shockingly, the local council has even facilitated school visits to the site, and the company has been represented at international arms trade events in England.
Due to their direct supply chain links with US defense programs, the factory also operates under strict US ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), giving the US say over its operations.
People Before Profit has proudly supported the Mid Ulster and Derry IPSC branches in their mass pickets that have twice shut down the factory, including a march last year that temporarily blocked the primary roundabout connecting Belfast to Derry. Derry People Before Profit activists have also occupied Invest NI offices in direct protest of this ongoing financial support from our government. At a recent deputation to Derry & Strabane council, Cllr Shaun Harkin in Derry rebuked the InvestNI CEO’s floating of potential defence company investment as “attempting to profit from war”, opposition sorely lacking in planning discussion in many council areas.
Situated close to the shores of Lough Neagh, the factory's public funding is particularly egregious. It highlights a grotesque hypocrisy that while our environment is exploited with Lough Neagh in crisis, and while essential public services like our water infrastructure and health service crumble, millions are funnelled into a genocide factory. This fight is inextricably linked to our broader struggle to protect our communities from destructive industries. A Mid Ulster People Before Profit campaign to oppose a giant Factory Farm beside Lough Neagh has received over 800 signatures and over 100 formal objections to the council, and will also face a planning vote in the near future.
Extending the Complicity
Last year, campaigners learned only after the fact that the SDLP, Sinn Féin, and others on the Mid Ulster Council quietly approved an extension for the Moyola facility. Now, another extension has been filed.
The hesitancy of confronting InvestNI & holding the state accountable within the Palestine movement has been problematic. There is an instinct that smaller actions or targeting for example, consumer products, is less divisive, but in reality that leads to very real, far more direct complicity on our doorstep being unchallenged from the movement. Blocking this new extension would send an important, unequivocal signal that factories involved with the F-35 program are complicit in war crimes and should not receive another brick, let alone another drop of taxpayer money.
The Mid Ulster IPSC has called a protest to pressure every local politician into rejecting this expansion, bolstered by over 200 objections already raised by the public. With Newry People Before Profit also currently supporting a campaign against the expansion of Thales in Newry, Mourne & Down, the decision made in South Derry may set a crucial precedent in what could be a line of dominoes.
People Before Profit calls for a complete rejection of this extension, an end to InvestNI funding for these factories, and an end to the F-35 program across the island.
Join the protest before the vote at 5:30pm Tuesday 7th July, Mid Ulster District Council offices and sign the petition, file an objection or learn more at https://bit.ly/midulsteripsc
