Olly Sprague

Anti-protest arrests made on Saturday provide real life examples of those warnings coming to fruition, demonstrating why it’s imperative that these draconian and repressive anti-protests laws are scrapped at the earliest opportunity.

The UK Government's Public Order bill has passed. Find out what this means below: Today (26 April 2023) the final stages of the Public Order Bill finally passed the House of Lords. The bill will introduce yet more draconian powers to...

The global Arms Trade Treaty came into force last Christmas Eve. In many ways a very familiar story of a miracle birth, heralded as a new chapter for humankind. One year on, though, and it’s already been broken. More shockingly still...

I’ve worked professionally in the field of arms trade regulation for the past 20 years and yesterday was a first for me. I was refused entry to this year’s DSEi Arms Fair in London's ExCel Centre , an event I've been to before to...

Just how long will the UK Government take to decide on whether or not the UK should be arming Israel? We know that Ministers have been reviewing arms licences for many days, and still they ponder. With 1,814 Palestinians killed and...

It doesn’t seem like a year ago that I was sitting quietly in the balcony overlooking the main UN General Assembly chamber in New York, nervously awaiting the landmark vote to adopt the arms trade treaty. I say quietly because we’d...

Yet again in the final hours, the Arms Trade Treaty was blocked. This time because of a cynical move by Iran, Syria and North Korea. In the Byzantine world of the UN, the exchange between the Chair and the three wreckers was so polite...

I'm in New York for final talks to agree the Arms Trade Treaty that I've been campaigning for for nearly twenty years. Two days ago things were looking as bleak as the weather here in NYC. The climate in the room for many of us was...

Want to get straight to the loopholes? Skip ahead At 4pm yesterday (9pm UK time, if you're counting), a packed UN conference room received the final draft of the Arms Trade Treaty from Ambassador Moritan. After nearly 20 years of...

It's self-evident that to control the arms trade you have to actually control all the things that kill, maim and brutalise people, and capture all the ways that arms get into the wrong hands. Maybe I take an overly simplistic view of...

After several false starts, the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations finally got underway yesterday. The Chair of the conference, Ambassador Moritan, was keen to make up some lost time and kept everyone in the room for an extra hour beyond...

It’s late on Thursday evening on day four of the Arms Trade Treaty preparatory conference. As I write, states participating in the conference have as yet not reached an agreement on the crucial rules of procedure that will determine...

Love was truly in the air today at the UN Arms Trade Treaty talks, being of course valentines day. Some handed out roses, we handed out campaign stickers . Our message to delegates: “Show some love for the arms trade treaty” and “make...

So here I am, sitting in a cold New York, writing our first Blog on the eve of the start of the fifth and final Arms Trade Treaty preparatory negotiations, the culmination of nearly 20 years of work to establish a set of strong and...