New rifle for British Army selected

What does this mean?

"Supplementing the current in-service L85A3, the AIW system has been secured under a £90 million contract with Macclesfield-based company Edgar Brothers."

These rifles are American-made.

Another nail in the coffin of Britain's armament-manufacturing capability.

Yes, the rifles are American made, as were Thompsons and Browning BARs in WW2.
The L85A2 and L85A3 were German made.

Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield closed down in 1988.
Our armament manufacturing capability has been mostly sporting, rather than military for a long time.

If you look at Birmingham Small Arms, there was an entire year towards the end of the 19th Century when their factory was shut, not making anything.
They diversified into sporting arms and bicycles and motorcycles because on military contracts only, they'd have gone bust.
And that was over a century ago.
In the 1950's they sold their bicycle business to Raleigh.
In the 1970's their motorcycle business collapsed in the face of competition from Japanese motorcycle companies.
In the 1980's they were taken over by GAMO, a Spanish company and became an airgun only company.

Sure, they were churning out rifles during the first world war and the second world war, but during times of peace, there just isn't enough money in military contracts.
The American companies have a lot of civilian customers, therefore there's enough work for them when they're not making rifles for the military.

We sensibly have controls, but controls are not good for the profits of gunmakers.

In 2009, the Lewis Machine Tool Company in the USA was given a contract to sell us the 7.62mm L129A1 AR-10 type 7.62mm rifle as the "Sharpshooter rifle" for use in Afghanistan.
It's not just the Tories picking American products.
Labour have done it too.

The standard sidearm of the British Army is now the L131A1 - Glock 17 (Austrian), the L7A2 General Purpose Machine Gun is made by FN Herstall of Belgium, that replaced the British Made Czech designed Bren Gun.

The Heckler & Koch 40mm Grenade Machine Gun is made in Germany.

The NLAW is made in Sweden by Saab Bofors.

Funny how you don't complain when it's rival European arms manufacturers making equipment for our armed forces, but when it's rival American manufacturers you've a bee in your bonnet.

We simply do not produce enough weapons anymore.
Both the Tories and Labour have seen to that.

I completely agree, we need to be self sufficient and we aren't.

What would you replace the Belgian made GPMG with?
The German made Grenade Machine Gun?
The Swedish made NLAWS?
And who would make it?

The 'Swedish made' NLAWS is made in Belfast by a subsidiary of the Thales Group, another national champion in which the French state is the largest shareholder.

Skills and capabilities that have been allowed to atrophy and dribble away over many years in the belief that the 'market' will cure all ills cannot be recuperated overnight.

Manufacturing small arms I would think is one of the easier problems to solve, so that would be a place to start. Seed capital, hiring talent and Chinese-style reverse engineering are among the ingredients necessary to restart industries from scratch.

Also banishing the mentality that every arms purchase must represent 'value for money' at that moment in time is going to be a necessary prerequisite.