Huge Win for BDS is a Massive Blow to Netanyahu!

Right, so if you want a brilliant example of how BDS and independent media investigation can come together to deliver a big defeat to Israel and have Benjamin Netanyahu pulling his combover out, as well as exposing the UK government both of Labour now and the Tories before for their quisling Zionist complicity to the gross detriment of the people of Palestine, then this is absolutely it, because the provision of engines for Israeli quadcopter drones, manufactured as they are here in the UK has come to an end finally, as the company on question, RCV Engines, a Dorset-based manufacturer of high-performance rotary engines, has announced the cancellation of its supply deal with Israel.
This is a huge victory for Declassified UK, who broke the story just a few months ago, for activists from Palestine Action and the Olive Branch Coalition, the power of local pressure on local representatives, all demonstrating once again the power of solidarity and collectivism and the power of ordinary working class people when they come together around a common goal for the greater good.
Right, so RCV Engines, nestled in the Dorset countryside, had for some time operated under a veil of obscurity, but that changed dramatically following an exposé by Declassified UK. Their investigation revealed that engines produced by RCV were being installed in Israel’s APUS 25 drone, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, the IAI. The drone—used by Israeli forces in the skies above Gaza—was found to be bearing RCV’s logo on their underside where the engine is located.
So the implications of this were enormous. Here was a British company—located not in an industrial military complex but in a rural town—providing critical hardware to a foreign state that stands accused by countless international observers and human rights groups of committing genocide in Gaza. Worse still, this was happening after the UK government claimed to have suspended arms exports to Israel in September 2024 following mass public pressure.
So how did the engine get there then Damo? You might be thinking. Surely an engine for an Israeli attack drone would very much be under licence and that licence surely would have been stopped? You ought to be right for thinking that, the government’s own blurb with relation to arms export licences after states that:
‘One of the criteria used by the government when assessing applications to export strategically controlled goods (arms) states that it will “not grant a licence if it determines there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. Arms export licences are regularly reviewed, says the government.’
And yet these engines are very much there. This wasn’t an accident, this wasn’t an oversight, this was entirely intentional and deliberate. It was the result of a premeditated exemption secured for RCV Engines, championed by their local Conservative MP at the time, the appalling Tory Christopher Chope. In 2022, under that Conservative government, RCV Engines managed to have its products removed from the UK's arms export control list, thereby freeing it from the obligation of securing an arms export licence for its engines — engines now powering lethal operations against Palestinian civilians. In fact RCV thanked Chope for his intervention, a LinkedIn post of theirs reading:
‘Sir Christopher first came to RCV in 2022. On that occasion he helped us remove the need for an export licence when shipping worldwide. This significantly improved lead times, reduced the admin burden and enabled the securing of more orders worldwide.
The success that we have seen since 2022, which is directly linked to the export control status, has meant RCV has been steadily growing. We are investing heavily in all areas of the business with recent upgrades to the test facility, employing of more staff and growing the product range. This was a good opportunity for us to say thank you and show the impact his efforts had for us.’
What’s more damning is that despite a change in government since, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has failed to rectify this gaping loophole, even as they moved belatedly to suspend other arms exports to Israel amid widespread outrage over Israel’s atrocities, including the killing of British aid workers in the World Central Kitchen strike, the then still Sunak government having approved further arms sales to Israel, sales signed off on incidentally by former Prime Minister David Cameron and current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, so they really are absolutely no different from each other at all are they?
By removing these engines from export controls, the UK government knowingly created a pathway for British technology to contribute to the military capabilities of foreign powers, without scrutiny or accountability.
The complicity of both the Labour government and the Conservative government before them in this case is not just regrettable—it is systemic. The fact that components used in deadly military drones were exempted from needing an export licence was not a bureaucratic oversight. It was a policy design.
When Labour assumed leadership under Keir Starmer, it had a chance to close these loopholes, especially as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza intensified. Instead, Starmer doubled down on his support for Israel's "right to self-defence," didn’t he? Echoing the same discredited narrative that has been used to justify thousands of civilian deaths.
Far from correcting past mistakes, the Labour government has become the latest custodian of Britain’s long and sordid tradition of enabling Israel’s violence through arms and component sales, so it really has been all up to us.
And so despite the institutional rot, unchanging no matter which mainstream party is in power, the public’s capacity to resist has never been stronger.
Last November, Palestine Action—the direct-action network that has targeted Elbit Systems and other arms companies in the UK—blockaded RCV Engines' site, disrupting operations and shedding public light at that time on the company's ties to Israeli militarism. Their protest was not a one-off but part of a broader campaign to force UK companies to divest from Israel’s war machine. The RCV blockade was especially significant because it highlighted a supply chain that had largely escaped media scrutiny up to that point.
Following that, in April of this year, Declassified UK published its bombshell investigation, confirming the connection between RCV’s engines and Israel’s killer drones. Their reporting brought credibility, evidence, and momentum to what activists on the ground had long claimed: that British companies were actively fuelling the destruction of Gaza.
Shortly thereafter, local pressure mounted. The Olive Branch Coalition, a Dorset-based human rights group, lobbied and mobilised a coalition of councillors from various political affiliations to sign an open letter condemning RCV’s role and calling for the cancellation of its contract with Israel. The letter, which was widely circulated, put the company in a direct ethical and reputational bind. RCV could no longer claim ignorance or separation from the consequences of their exports.
One Green Party councillor in Dorset, Joe Salmon said:
‘A Dorset company is supplying parts for technology linked to the killing of civilians. That should disturb every single one of us.
RCV may claim its exports are lawful, but legality is no shield from moral responsibility. If their components are enabling war crimes, they must act immediately.’
And so now the pressure has yielded results: RCV Engines has announced it has cancelled its contract with Israel.
This moment marks one of the clearest and most effective BDS victories in recent UK history. Unlike general boycotts or symbolic statements, or petitions or strongly worded letters, the shutdown of RCV’s contract represents a tangible disruption to Israel’s drone capabilities. It proves the effectiveness of targeting supply chains, applying legal and moral pressure, and leveraging local democratic mechanisms like councils and community groups. This really has been the power of ordinary working class people in action.
Moreover, it sends a clear message to other UK companies as well: you may be able to hide behind legal loopholes, but you cannot hide from the moral reckoning, or the potential hit to your profit margins that may come from being associated with enabling a genocide.
For years, critics of BDS have smeared the movement as impractical or extremist, but this campaign shows the opposite. Through persistent grassroots pressure, investigatory journalism from proper journalists, direct action, and democratic engagement, activists were able to target a specific cog in the machinery of war—and stop it.
While RCV Engines' exit from the Israeli drone program is cause for celebration, it needs to be a trigger for even deeper questions: How many other companies are operating under similar exemptions as RCV got in evading the need for arms export licences? How many other components are quietly slipping from UK factories into Israeli drones, missiles, and tanks because they are unlicenced? And that of course comes on top of the Starmer regime, after suspending 34 arms licences, granting so many more in the subsequent months.
The government’s refusal to review and close these loopholes as well as continuing to grant more licences makes it complicit in ongoing war crimes. It is why Starmer won’t call it a genocide, because he’s up to his neck in it. Therefore whilst we celebrate an individual victory here, pressure must continue to be applied to overhaul the UK's entire arms export framework, especially its treatment of so-called dual-use goods, which is another excuse to cover continued exports of certain materials. If a component can be used to kill, it should be subject to scrutiny—regardless of whether it looks like a military item on paper.
Equally, politicians who claim to care about Gaza—while doing nothing to change the rules that enable this violence—should be held accountable. Words like "intolerable" or "concerning" mean nothing when children are dying and British technology is part of the machinery of their destruction.
The cancellation of RCV Engines’ contract with Israel is a story of moral courage triumphing over corporate complicity. It is the story of ordinary people refusing to remain silent, of investigative journalism shining light into dark corners, and of political activism refusing to be neutral in the face of genocide.
It also lays bare the extent to which the UK government—both past and present—has bent over backwards to enable Israel’s violence, even as it pretends to play peacemaker on the world stage.
As the bloodshed in Gaza continues, and as more companies are implicated in this trade of death, the lessons of the RCV Engines case must not be forgotten. They must be built upon, multiplied, and echoed across every sector where complicity hides behind technicalities and legalities.
For every engine that no longer flies above Gaza, there are many more that still do. So the struggle must continue, so BDS must grow, until they, too, are grounded.
Meanwhile, back in parliament, Starmer is faces a reckoning that he might not be able to avoid. Jeremy Corbyn’s Gaza Inquiry Bill has passed first reading, but can Starmer really allow an Inquiry into something he is seen to be so complicit in, or dare he block it and still look guilty as hell? Check out this video recommendation to get the details of that story as your suggested next watch.
Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t done so already so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as spreading the word and helping to support the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks