Andrew Feinstein

Andrew Josef Feinstein (born 16 March 1964) is a South African former politician, activist, filmmaker, campaigner and author, now based in London, who specialises in the investigation of the arms trade and the corruption that accompanies it. He is Executive Director of a small non-profit, Shadow World Investigations, and serves on the board of Declassified UK. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Feinstein was the first MP to introduce a motion on the Holocaust in the South African parliament.

Feinstein was elected in South Africa's first democratic elections following the abolition of Apartheid, serving as a member of parliament from 1994 to 2001 as a member of the ruling ANC party. In 2001, in protest against the ANC's refusal to investigate allegations of huge bribes and large-scale corruption against senior ANC politicians arising from a £5 billion arms deal, he resigned his parliamentary seat and moved to London, where he works as an investigative author and campaigner. On first arriving in London he worked in investment banking for more than five years.

A former member of the UK Labour Party, Feinstein is highly critical of Keir Starmer, and the direction Labour has taken under Starmer's leadership. Feinstein has lived in Starmer's constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras since 2001, has criticised Starmer for being "terrible on Gaza", and stood against Starmer in the 2024 general election, winning second place with 7,312 votes (18.9%). He commented that "Keir Starmer is the first British Prime Minister in electoral history to enter 10 Downing Street having seen his majority reduced".

Early life and education
Andrew Feinstein was born in Cape Town to Viennese Holocaust survivor Erika (Hemmer) and Ralph Josef Feinstein. Dozens of members of his mother's family were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp and Theresienstadt, whilst she herself hid from the Nazis in Vienna. Her horrific experiences shaped his political views from a very young age. Motivated by her work with anti-apartheid groups, he became involved in the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC) from his late teens.

Feinstein completed his secondary education at Wynberg Boys' High School in Cape Town in 1981; four years later he graduated with a BA (Honours) degree from the University of Cape Town. He studied graduate-level Economics & Politics from 1985 to 1987 at the University of California, and in 1990 gained a Master of Philosophy degree in Economics & Politics from the University of Cambridge.

African National Congress
He was elected an ANC member of parliament under Nelson Mandela in the first democratic election in 1994. He served as a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and an advisor to Gauteng's then-MEC of Finance, Jabu Moleketi, from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as an economic advisor to then-premier Tokyo Sexwale. He was elected as a member of the South African Parliament's lower house in 1997.

Feinstein introduced the first ever motion on the Holocaust in South African parliamentary history. Feinstein stated that previous suffering – by Afrikaners at the hands of the British colonizers, or of Jews by the Nazis – in no way justified the brutal oppression of Black South Africans or Palestinians.

During his time in office, he served on the Finance Committee, and chaired the sub-committee that drafted the Public Finance Management Act (Act 1 of 2000), as chair of the ANC study group on public accounts and the ANC's official spokesman on the National Assembly's public accounts committee. Feinstein was at the time referred to as "one of its most vocal and talented MPs", who argued that a thorough investigation into the South African Arms Deal had to be done. He resigned in 2001 when the ANC refused to launch an unfettered investigation into the matter. He was succeeded by Geoff Doidge in both positions.

Post-ANC career
Feinstein resigned from his seat in 2001 when the ANC refused to investigate the corruption and bribery allegations regarding the arms deal. He has since lived in London, where he is Executive Director of not-for-profit Shadow World Investigations and chaired the Aids charity Friends of the Treatment Action Campaign, and lectures and writes on South Africa and the global arms trade. He is now considered an ANC dissident and critic, with his memoirs, After the Party, being severely critical of the political culture of the ANC. He describes the ill-fated arms deal as the "point at which the ANC lost its moral compass".

In an interview with Democracy Now!, he noted the ways in which the global arms trade was linked to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

About l'affaire Dadak, concerning the activities of a Franco-Polish arm dealer Pierre Dadak, Feinstein stated: "Dadak's story reflects the complete amoral nature of the arms trade. The distinction between arms dealers and grifters is extremely fuzzy. A lot of these people are almost caricatures, they have huge personalities, they're delusional. The extraordinary thing is how company after company, government after government, actually fall for these people. And the reason they do it is because everything that happens in this trade is secret, so it provides absolutely fertile ground for these sorts of conmen".

A staunch critic of the nature and regulation of the global arms trade, Feinstein is a board member of Declassified UK, an investigative journalism website set up in 2019 by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis to cover the UK's role on the international stage.

Feinstein argued that the strategy that helped end South Africa's crime of apartheid must also be mobilized against Israel and apartheid. The BDS strategy — Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – was very effectively utilized against apartheid South Africa.

UK Labour Party
Feinstein joined British Labour Party shortly before Jeremy Corbyn became leader. In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Feinstein signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."

In December 2020, he described Keir Starmer, Corbyn's successor as the Labour Party leader, as "inauthentic" and "severely lacking in charisma". After leaving the party, he remained highly critical of Starmer and the direction Labour had taken under Starmer's leadership, accusing Starmer of, among other things, being "terrible on Gaza". In February 2024, it was announced that Feinstein was preparing to stand against Starmer in his constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras as an independent at the next general election, endorsed by two grassroots organisations. In the general election on 4 July 2024, Feinstein finished second, with 7,312 votes to Starmer's 18,884.

The Shadow World
In 2011 Feinstein's book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, an investigation into the global arms industry was published outside the US by Penguin in 2011 and 2012 and in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The Washington Post described the book as "A comprehensive treatment of the arms trade, possibly the most complete account ever written." Paul Rogers in The Independent commented: "one thing that has been missing has been a comprehensive book for the more general reader, along the lines of Anthony Sampson's The Arms Bazaar, back in the late 1970s. Andrew Feinstein's The Shadow World does just this, and in some ways it is even better than Sampson's influential volume. What is particularly useful is the very unusual combination of a thoroughly readable book that also provides a quite extraordinary range of sources – some 2,500 footnotes in all." Feinstein reported "that the trade in weapons accounts for around 40 percent of all corruption in all world trade The...trade in weapons is extremely closely tied into the mechanics of government. The defence manufacturers, those who make the weapons, are closely tied in to governments, to militaries, to intelligence agencies and crucially to political parties."

The book was made into a feature documentary, Shadow World, by Louverture Films, directed by the Belgian Johan Grimonprez. Feinstein co-wrote the film and features in it. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016 and won Best Documentary Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2016, Tiempo de Historia Award (Best Documentary) Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid 2016, and Ensor Best Documentary at the Ostend Film Festival 2017. It was screened at the Wales One World Film Festival in March 2017.

Personal life
Feinstein met his Bangladeshi future wife Simone Sultana – whom he described as "highly politicised" – while at university in Cambridge. Four years after they first met, they were married in King's College Chapel, Cambridge on 18 December 1993, holding further celebrations a few days later with Simone's family in Bangladesh. In his memoir, Feinstein praised his wife as "my best friend, my confidant and the love of my life". The couple have a son and a daughter. His interests include crime fiction, football, music and film. In football, he supports Arsenal.

Books

 * After the Party:
 * – People with impaired vision might prefer this edition, as it is printed in a larger font than the 2009 edition.
 * – with additional preface and afterword
 * – with additional preface and afterword
 * – with additional preface and afterword

Videos

 * (7:49 minutes)
 * (11:55 minutes)
 * (1 hour 50 minutes)
 * (9:30 minutes; part of a 7hr 22min 38sec video)
 * (3:25 minutes)