Despite storm Darragh, dozens of peace campaigners braved strong winds on Saturday afternoon (7th December 2024) to gather outside entrances to the mills and offices of James Cropper PLC in Burneside. They called on the company to stop supplying materials used to build F35 combat aircraft for Israel.
The campaigners met earlier in the day at the Friends Meeting House in Kendal where they constructed a giant paper plane carrying the message “Tell James Cropper: Paper Planes Not War Planes”, and made many smaller paper planes which they delivered to the reception building of James Cropper PLC in Burneside. These smaller planes carried messages to the company, including, “Stop Supplying Genocide” and “Stop Arming War Criminals”.
James Cropper Advanced Materials which until a few months ago was known as Technical Fibre Products (TFP) manufacture wet-laid nonwoven materials used in the construction of the F35 combat aircraft. Local peace campaigners have previously highlighted the fact that, in November 2023, Technical Fibre Products (TFP) was one of 79 UK companies listed as having an open general export licence from the Department of Business and Trade for exports in support the F35 programme and, in February 2024, noted that the company’s website stated that “Defence is a key market for TFP and we provide nonwoven solutions for a number of cutting edge military aircraft and vehicles including the F35”. F35s are built by Lockheed Martin in the USA, but contain materials and components made by a variety of companies in several different locations, including James Cropper PLC in Burneside.
In a press release issued on 4th September 2024, James Cropper PLC admitted that their “products feature in finished products across multiple industries including aerospace and defence”. It is understood that the ‘wet-laid nonwoven materials’ made at Burneside Mills are used for radar absorption and electromagnetic interference shielding in all F35s, including Israel’s.
The F35 is known to have played a major part in Israel’s attacks on Gaza where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and injured, including many thousands of children. Israel is currently awaiting delivery of another 25 F35s which it is understood will bring the total number they have to 75.
Speaking on behalf of the campaigners, Philip Gilligan said
“We have been talking to residents whilst delivering leaflets in Burneside in our preparations for today’s action. Many have been genuinely horrified to learn that material for the F35s used by Israel in its relentless and brutal attacks in Gaza have been manufactured on their doorstep. Like many of us they cannot understand how a company bearing the name of a committed Quaker and philanthropist, like James Cropper, can justify profiting from the sale of materials used to build weapons which have played such a prominent role in actions judged by the International Court of Justice to be plausible ‘war crimes’ and by Amnesty International to be ‘genocide’? It seems very doubtful that a man who donated land for the construction of the Kendal Memorial Hospital at Ghyll Head in 1869, would have ever agreed to supply materials for weapons which have dropped bombs on dozens of hospitals and killed thousands of women and children in Gaza. However, every one of the F35s used by Israel to drop bombs on refugee camps, hospitals and schools in Gaza, contains material made by James Cropper PLC in Burneside. We again call on them to stop supplying genocide and to stop arming war criminals.”
