Peaceful Alternatives to the Military-Industrial Complex: Arms conversion beyond the Lucas Plan

Half-a-century since the workers of Lucas Aerospace proposed to shift from military to socially useful production, the idea of converting arms industries is increasingly touted. Steven Schofield argues that both the nature of military industries and the challenge of climate breakdown have changed dramatically since the 1970s and calls for a more radical, decentralised and sustainable approach to industrial and economic strategy.

There has been a revival of interest in arms conversion, here and in the United States, with calls for a national ‘Lucas Plan’, based on the original proposals of the Lucas Aerospace trade unionists in the 1970s for socially-useful production to replace military contracting. Support for conversion is welcome but applying the Lucas model to what has become a small group of specialised, military prime-contractors seriously underestimates the industrial and technological barriers to factory-based conversion.

A broader ‘economic conversion’ model combines disarmament, closure of military-industrial sites and deep cuts to arms spending, with a public investment programme in new civil manufacturing capacity for renewable energy. This can accelerate progress towards a zero-carbon economy, provide skilled employment, including for displaced arms-industry workers with transferable skills, and help regenerate regions that have experienced de-industrialisation.

The Lucas Plan and arms conversion in the 1970s and 1980s

It was in the context of a redundancy programme announced by the management of Lucas Aerospace in 1975 that shop stewards developed an alternative plan, with proposals for ‘socially-useful’ production, including medical equipment, environmental technologies and public transportation. Despite support for the plan from workers in the company and the wider trade union movement, it failed to gain the backing of the Labour government and was rejected by the Lucas management.

However, it did inspire other conversion initiatives around the country, including a worker-led campaign by the Barrow Alternative Employment Committee (BAEC), during the mid-1980s, for alternative, civil work to the Trident ballistic-missile submarine programme at the shipyard. My main report for the committee argued that Barrow should be the location for a government-funded, marine-technology research centre. A particular and pioneering focus was on offshore wind and wave power, given the potential contribution that renewables could make to UK energy needs and to skilled employment in engineering and shipbuilding.

Contemporary arms conversion

The context for conversion policy in the 2020s has fundamentally changed from the 1970s. A process of consolidation has seen BAE Systems emerge as the dominant prime contractor, manufacturing fighter aircraft, nuclear submarines and surface vessels. Direct arms-industry employment, according to the MoD, has declined from over 400,000 in the early 1980s to an estimated 134,000 in 2022/23, including significant reductions at the small number of remaining, prime-contractor sites.

The specialised nature of these sites cannot be over-emphasised. They integrate an already complex range of sub-systems for military platforms e.g., fly-by-wire avionics, nuclear reactors, etc., that have to be operational under extreme conditions of war-fighting. These are ‘baroque’, industrial and technological cathedrals to the god of militarism. No civil equivalents for systems integration exist at that level of complexity, even in associated sectors of aerospace and shipbuilding.

Factory-based conversion that attempts to maintain a similar network of suppliers, production capacity and levels of employment, risks the waste of scarce, public resources in a costly and time-consuming reconstruction. But this model was the basis for a Common Wealth report, published in October 2024, advocating a new, national Lucas Plan that covered all the prime contractor sites in the UK. Emphasis was placed on civil manufacturing for the renewable energy sector and the transferable skills of the workforce.

If the priority is to maximise the potential economic benefits from disarmament then an ‘economic conversion’ model offers greater opportunities for socially-useful production, an accelerated, renewable energy programme at dedicated, civil manufacturing facilities, and a fairer regional distribution of public investment than that of military spending. The latter traditionally favours employment in the South East (including London), 42,300, the South West of England, 33,600, and, to a lesser extent, the North West, 16,900, according to estimated figures for 2023 from the MoD.

Deficits in renewable energy technologies

On present trends the UK will not reach the government target of 55 GW of installed offshore wind power until 2048. Equally concerning is the limited UK industrial base for the full range of offshore wind technologies, with most turbines built by overseas companies. Also, there are no nacelles manufacturers in the UK; these house the gearing and electrical generating equipment inside the turbines.

This lack of capacity is nothing short of a national scandal, when with public investment, the UK could have been self-sufficient in renewables and ended its dependency on overseas energy supplies. If all the capacity had been provided by UK manufacturers it is estimated by IPPR that an extra 98,000 jobs could have been generated, many of them in the poorer regions of the UK.

But the prospects for economic conversion look bleak. The Starmer government is determined on rearmament in response to the Ukrainian crisis and growing international tensions. The commitment is to raise military spending to 2.5% of GDP, or even higher, towards £70 billion a year. At the same time it has slashed additional funding for renewable energy investment from an original £25-£30 billion to £5 billion.

Is it possible to mobilise a broad movement for economic conversion? The Green New Deal represents a popular, alternative economic strategy including a ‘Just Transition’ through retraining and employment opportunities for workers displaced from the fossil-fuel industries, in ways that are directly applicable to arms-industry workers. A new framework, incorporating disarmament and conversion, has the potential to make a significant contribution to both economic and environmental security that generates similar support.

Conclusion

The military-industrial complex (MIC) has a vice-like grip on public funding, institutionally embedded at the highest levels of government and feeding the giant arms corporations, such as Lockheed Martin in the United States and BAE Systems in the UK, that have dominated arms procurement for over fifty years.

Any conversion policy rests on closing down the MIC and creating a new institutional structure for disarmament, civil investment and popular planning. For example, the emphasis might be on an overall reduction in energy demands and the material throughput of the economy, by retrofitting the existing housing stock with insulation, decentralised energy distribution and battery storage, integrated public transport to replace private vehicle journeys, and self-sufficiency in food production.

Whatever model emerges from these forms of popular planning, the objective must be to devolve economic decision-making, as far as possible, to local communities and to maximise the economic benefits for working people, such as skilled work, democratic ownership of industry and the circulation of income locally.

Do we accept the inevitability of a global arms race and irreversible climate change? Or do we build a new economy based on the labour movement’s proud traditions of internationalism and support for disarmament, where the skills of working people can be directed to socially-useful production rather than to weapons of mass destruction?

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This blog is an edited version of the full-length article available here.

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The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.

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Image Credit: via Wikipedia. BAE Systems Devonshire Dock Hall, where UK nuclear submarines are built, is the second-largest indoor shipbuilding facility in Europe and easily the UK’s largest remaining shipyard in terms of workforce.