More than 100 people join 'No More F-35 parts' protest outside County Derry factory

Over 100 protesters joined the 'No More F-35 parts' protest outside Moyola Precision Engineering yesterday in Castledawson. 

The event was organised by the Mid Ulster Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Mid Ulster IPSC) and Derry IPSC.

Speakers included Civil Rights Leaders Eamonn McCann and Bernadette McAliskey, and Goretti Horgan of the Raytheon 9, chaired by Pádraig MacNiocaill of the Mid Ulster IPSC.

Protesters demanded that the firm ‘immediately divest from manufacturing parts for F-35s, the same warplanes currently committing genocide in Palestine’. 

A spokesperson said: “Protesters are proud of the fact that no production was able to happen while the protest took place. Any delay in getting F-35 parts to the US or Israel will save lives in Palestine.” Protesters also spoke out against InvestNI, the Department for the Economy and its minister, Caoimhe Archibald, who they say ‘are responsible for public funds going to complicit factories across the country’. 

“Israel uses F-35 fighter jets as a primary source of bomb delivery on Gaza, and Moyola Precision Engineering, recipient of InvestNI funds, continues to proudly boast of its supply of F-35 parts as well as critical components for missiles and guidance platforms,” the spokesperson continued.

“Details from ActNow's recent report reveal that: ⁠Moyola Precision Engineering received £5.67m from Invest NI in the past 22 years, with some of that allocated in 2023/24.“Since 2017, Invest NI has met with Moyola 62 times.“⁠Invest NI met at the site to discuss R&D projects and met as recently as January 2025.

InvestNI is currently subject to an ongoing lawsuit regarding funding for F-35 fighter jets. Currently in Gaza 2.2 million people are being deliberately starved to death by Israel and slaughtered by the unrelenting bombing with arms supplied by the US, EU and UK.”

Goretti Horgan of the Raytheon 9 said:  “The arms trade should not be supported by taxpayers' money. Benefits for sick and disabled people are being cut, PM Keir Starmer tells us, so he can spend more on weapons of mass destruction, many of which - like the F-35 parts made in Moyola - are being used to carry out the genocide in Gaza.”

Bernadette McAliskey in her speech stated: "We have to build, it is a responsibility on all of us to have the conversations about Palestine with the people who don't want to have them. At the school gate, factory gate, church gate. We are watching a holocaust in real time on television. If people ask themselves 'What would you have done if you lived in Nazi Germany?'... it is whatever you are doing now!"

Eamonn McCann in his speech added: "When we fight against the decimation of Gaza, when we fight against arms companies. It's not a negative thing. It's not just a protest. We're here to assert something positive. That the world could be a much better place than this!"

Pádraig MacNiocaill said: "We demand a complete divestment of the manufacture of complicit parts from Moyola Precision Engineering. They have existed before they took on the F-35 programme. They can find income that isn’t soaked in blood. We will not rest until Moyola Divest!"

Organisers said the protest ‘stood in full solidarity with Palestine Action and the Filton18, who are currently undergoing a trial for disrupting genocide arms, and against the disgraceful attempt by the British Government to classify peaceful, anti-genocide protestors as terrorists, all whilst the British Government themselves send arms to Israel, fully complicit in genocide’.