Elbit grows UK footprint as government grows its repression

The UK’s repressive treatment of political prisoners who allegedly disrupted Israeli arms firm Elbit continues. And with the state on its side, the company is now ‘expanding its presence’. This comes amid police mistreatment of protesters targeting Elbit in Kent.

Prisoners have just undertaken the biggest hunger strike campaign in decades, because the UK has jailed them for an excessive amount of time without trial. But while they praised a £2bn contract not going to Elbit recently (amid corruption allegations), the company is still going strong.

‘Elbit Systems continues to expand its presence in the UK’

Elbit Systems Ltd is the largest arms producer from Israel, and the apartheid state is the biggest market for its products, before Europe and North America. It has subsidiaries around the world, including in the UK.

The company is responsible for 80% of the weapons and equipment for the Israeli military’s land forces, playing a vital role in the settler-colonial power’s genocide in Gaza. This genocide has killed over 70,000 people since October 2023, including more than 20,000 children.

A non-violent direct action campaign against Elbit in the UK by Palestine Action and others made it:

harder, slower and more expensive to arm and abet the oppression of Palestinians.

However, the Labour government’s highly controversial crackdown on such action served to pass the cost of protecting Israeli interests from the company itself to the British public. And Elbit Systems UK is now expanding.

The Israeli company has now fully acquired UAV Tactical Systems (UTACS), which was previously a joint venture with Thales UK (Elbit held 51% stake). The plan is to develop UTACS’s role in the market for drones even further.

According to Army Technology:

The group plans to concentrate on serving European and Nato customers, while continuing to deliver existing programmes and maintain its current British workforce.

Its headquarters are in Braunstone Town, Leicestershire.

Speaking about the news, Elbit boss Bezhalel Machlis asserted that:

Elbit Systems continues to expand its presence in the UK to meet the growing demand for our products and technologies.

He added that:

this acquisition further strengthens our engineering and manufacturing capabilities across the continent, reinforcing our long term commitment to the UK and the wider European defence industry.

A stain on the UK that needs to end

The UK treats Palestine Action political prisoners as ‘terrorists’ because of their alleged actions against Elbit and those with links to it. And its treatment of them has been cold and cruel. While the normal pre-trial detention limit is six months, most political prisoners have spent many months more in prison without a conviction.

Two political prisoners who were close to death after more than two months on hunger strike suspended it on 15 January following several developments. One development was that hundreds of people had signed up in recent weeks “to take direct action against weapons firms” with links to Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

In other words, as long as the UK government chooses to protect companies complicit in mass murder, resistance is only likely to continue. The events the Canary has documented on 23 January demonstrate this:

BREAKING — BREAKING —

Kent Police used violence to arrest a peaceful protester for NO GOOD REASON while assaulting accredited Canary journalist @NicolaCJeffery and others in the process. Happening now outside Elbit-owned Instro Precision in Kent @DefendOurJuries @CAGEintl pic.twitter.com/UEDLxboBEz

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) January 23, 2026

🚨🚨🚨 URGENT – police becoming violent, pushing peaceful protesters outside Elbit-owned Instro Precision's factory in Kent – where they have now forcibly pushed the entire crowd back and are kettling them pic.twitter.com/OjZ5297ZQm

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) January 23, 2026

🚨 URGENT: crowds have turned up in Sandwich to peacefully blockade Instro Precision – an Elbit- owned arms supplier – due to its complicity in Israel's ongoing g*nocide in Gaza @Prisoners4Pal @DefendOurJuries pic.twitter.com/DOiBIYFKlV

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) January 23, 2026

BREAKING: protesters have now moved to Elbit-owned Instro Precision's main office – letting off fireworks and flares as they call out its complicity in Israel's g*nocide pic.twitter.com/psCVedNNEd

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) January 23, 2026

Featured image via the Canary

Comments 1

Airlane1979 says:

5 months ago

One lesson we ought to draw is that individually heroic actions such as hunger strikes are ineffective against imperialism. Protests, too, which aim to stir the consciences of our ruling class rarely achieve much, if at all. A million people marched in 2003 to prevent the UK invading Iraq, and failed. As for Elibit Systems and its suppliers, one tactic as yet unused would be to uncover the British workers involved in this foul trade. After all, would any of us happily know that our family’s income was dependent on the decapitation of children?