Labour defence secretary caught smearing university students at massive arms dinner

On 28 January, Labour Party defence secretary John Healey spoke at the annual ADS dinner. The dinner, held at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane, is a major lobbying and networking event for the arms industry. Healey used his speech to criticise student campus protests over arms trade involvement in their universities.

He stated that “We don’t stop wars by boycotting our defence industry. We stop wars by backing it”.

John Healey at the ADS arms industry dinner

Protesters outside the hotel ensured those attending the dinner did not dine in peace:

Arms dealers and politicians arriving at the £265-£540 a head event were forced to walk through a large noisy protest with chants of “Your dinner is soaked in Palestinian blood”, “shame on you” and “murderers”:

Many of the companies that sponsored and/or attended the dinner are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza:

 

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Event sponsors included BAE Systems and Babcock. BAE Systems is the lead partner in the F-35 combat aircraft programme. The UK made 15% of every F-35 Israel used to drop 2000lb bombs on Gaza. The F-35 licence was exempted from Labour’s partial arms suspension despite evidence that Israel used F-35s to commit war crimes.

Speaking at the 2025 dinner, ADS’ CEO claimed that “Despite what you may have heard on the way in, we are not the bad guys”, before praising the Labour government for its “strong show of support, understanding and listening”.

In 2024, the ADS dinner was attended by over 1200 people, including 40+ members of parliament, eight government ministers, opposition front benchers, and international delegations. Also in attendance was arms trade lobbyist and so-called ‘independent’ government advisor on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney aka John Woodcock. Walney complained to GB News in 2024 that attendees had to “run the gauntlet” of protesters to attend the event.

Profiting from Israel’s genocide

Campaign Against Arms Trade’s (CAAT) 2024 report on political influence revealed the disturbing level of access and influence the arms industry has on UK government. This included BAE Systems having more meetings with ministers, and more with prime ministers, than any other private company. On average, between 2009-19, senior government officials and ministers met with their arms industry counterparts 1.64 times a day.

Emily Apple, CAAT’s Media Coordinator, said:

The people attending this event dined on the profits of genocide. This disgusting event is nothing more than a lobbying opportunity for war criminals to network with top-level politicians. Healey’s unconditional support is exactly why this dinner is important to the industry, and exactly why we protested outside. His absurd comments show that it is business as usual for arms companies under a Labour government. Selling more weapons and enabling war crimes and genocide will never lead to increased peace and security.

However, it’s heartening to know that our collective protests are effective. Boycotts work and students have been clear – they won’t tolerate arms companies operating and recruiting on their campuses and the effectiveness of these protests has obviously worried both the government and the arms industry.

Those attending the ADS dinner are most definitely the bad guys. They are merchants of death, complicit in genocide and fuelling conflict worldwide in order to line their pockets. The contacts and conversations that happen at events like this lead to deadly consequences and our protest ensured those attending had to confront the reality of their murderous deals.

Featured image and additional images via CAAT