In 2012 and 2013, UWE made the backstage decision to host a military business and arms trade event named DPRTE. DPRTE has been widely promoted by the MoD and the military community as ‘the UK’s leading defence event’ for businesses ‘to gain their share of £160 Bn from the MoD’s 10 Year Equipment Plan’ including £11.4 Bn on weapons, £18.5 Bn on combat air, and £35.8 Bn on submarines and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
After being alerted by anti-arms campaigners, a group of UWE students and Bristol citizens decided to protest DPRTE 2013 on the 20th of November 2013. Despite considerable hostility especially from DPRTE participants, UWE security, and UWE staff at the highest level, the WesternEye reported: “Students Stage ‘Impeccable’ Protest”.
A small, peaceful and determined protest proved sufficient to boot this event off campus. However, the university’s involvement in the repression of this protest, and their dismissal of health and safety concerns in order to suppress an important debate about the relationship between UWE, the arms trade and the military raises fundamental concerns.
Since March 2014, a student campaign has been calling for an independent review to perform a clear and balanced clarification of what happened on campus on the 20th of November 2013 and since, and make recommendations to take appropriate remedial action. In July 2014, UWE’s branch of the lecturers’ union (UCU) confirmed its support to this campaign in a letter to the Vice-Chancellor.
However, the university has repeatedly failed to reply to the student campaign and to the lecturers’ union. This was reported in an article published in December 2014 in the WesternEye entitled “UWE fails to act after repression of student protest”. Despite this, when Members of Parliament were asked to hold UWE to account, the university insisted that they answered (and rejected) the request.
As part of a campaign involving students and staff, we are now collecting student signatures to call for a UWESU referendum for the Students’ Union to support the independent review. Please consider signing this petition if you are a student. Please also consider promoting it, and stay tuned or get in touch if you can help as much more is coming up 
Thank you ♥
I SIGN TO SUPPORT THE CALL FOR AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE ‘UWE ARMS FAIR’ AS OUTLINED IN THE OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNORS AND I PETITION UWESU TO ORGANISE A REFERENDUM ON THIS IMPORTANT STUDENT ISSUE.
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