Nuclear weapons

Despite recently uncovered historical evidence of nuclear ‘near misses’ and growing scientific evidence of the devastating global consequences of the use of only a few nuclear weapons, there is still a widespread belief in the value of these weapons among senior policy-makers in the nuclear-armed nations.

In the UK, this manifests itself in a cross-party parliamentary majority in favour of replacing the Trident system. This is largely because of a widespread belief in nuclear…

Trident Ploughshares have chosen June this year for a month of nonviolent civil resistance (blockades, citizens’ inspections, cutting fences – anything nonviolent and creative) at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Burghfield.

Threatening mass destruction impacts the whole social change movement because at its heart it supports a monetarised, exploitative, inhumane and deeply unethical divisive system.

Nuclear weapons and the militarisation…

On 9 January, police in Stirling detained two lots of activists monitoring nuclear weapons convoys passing through the Scottish town.

Veronika Tudhope, assistant coordinator of Scottish CND, was approached by two police officers while she parked by Stirling Castle. The officers said her car had been reported for ‘erratic driving’ and asked to see under the bonnet.

They then detained her until 10 minutes after the convoy had passed. Veronika commented that she’d been driving…

It will cost £167bn to replace and maintain Britain’s nuclear arsenal, Conservative MP Crispin Blunt calculated in October, using official figures, just as the Conservative government was hinting that a vote on Trident replacement could come before Christmas.

In a written parliamentary response to Blunt, the minister of state for defence procurement, Philip Dunne, said on 23 October that the acquisition of four new nuclear missile submarines would cost £25bn.

The in-…

On 16 November, a group of Scottish peace groups launched a campaign focusing on the links between banks and financial institutions and companies involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

According to ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’, a report published by the Dutch peace organisation PAX, 53 financial institutions in the world now prohibit or limit investments in nuclear weapon producers, a 50…

Trident Ploughshares has today, 1 October 2015, launched a project to encourage groups around England and Wales to go to their local magistrates court to try and initiate a citizen's prosecution against the secretary of state for defence for conspiring to commit a war crime.

If this is done in many places, lots of local people will hear the arguments for and against Trident and the legal system will have to deal with the multiple attempts to get the courts to examine the legality of…

In South Wales, the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was marked with two vigils. A large crowd including members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and CND Cymru gathered by Tredegar Park lake in Newport Gwent. They heard Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West, a message of solidarity from Hiroshima, readings, and songs from Frankie Armstrong and Côr Cochion.

Cardiff’s annual remembrance at Roath…

How can we create a genuinely common agenda for the climate movement and the disarmament movement? It’s easy – and still important – to say that the money we spend on nuclear weapons could be spent on preventing climate change, but there must be more than that.

For us in the peace movement, it can be hard sometimes to see that climate change is already a reality today, it’s not just about what might happen two generations from now. We’re already seeing the impact of climate change…

On 16 June, the navy gave Trident whistleblower William McNeilly a ‘dishonourable discharge’, one month after he published an 18-page exposé of safety and security faults on nuclear missile submarine HMS Victorious, which he had recently served on. No legal action is being taken against McNeilly by the navy.

The navy rubbished McNeilly’s allegations as ‘subjective and unsubstantiated’, and held an inquiry that concluded that his claims were ‘factually incorrect or the…

31 July – 1 August

WALLASEY CH45 5DX. EXHIB
Hiroshima/Nagasaki exhibition in Earlston Library, Earlston Rd.

3 – 31 August

LIVERPOOL L3 8EW. EXHIB
‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years on’. Exhibition in Central Liverpool Library, William Brown St. More info: www.mcnd.org.uk

Saturday 1 August

BROMLEY BR1 1HA. VIGIL
Hiroshima Day Vigil with…

Many people justify the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago. Though brutal and indiscriminate, many people believe the atomic bombings shortened the Pacific war, and reduced the total number of lives lost.

In fact, there is a strong case that the US determination to use the bomb lengthened the war.

It is…

The overall majority gained by the Conservatives took a lot of us by surprise. Many were expecting a minority Labour win, with some support from the Scottish National Party. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats had the worst election night since their formation.

There’ve been many attempts to analyse Labour’s failure to win the election – were they too left or too right? Is he ‘Red Ed’ and a ‘class war zealot’ or middle-of-the-road ‘austerity-lite’? Was it the media that ‘won it’? It…

On 13 April, 34 protesters were arrested as they blockaded Faslane naval base near Glasgow, where Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines are kept. The Scrap Trident coalition’s ‘Bairns Not Bombs’ action (which kept the base closed from 7am until workers were sent home at 1.30pm) brought together 250 trade unionists, party activists, religious groups, environmental campaigners and community members, on the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. The blockade followed the 4,000-strong…

Co-ordinated protests against nuclear weapons stretched around the world at the end of April, including a global ‘wave’ of demonstrations.

On 28 April, the second day of the UN-sponsored Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in New York, 22 protesters were arrested after nonviolently blockading the two main entrances to the US mission to the UN in the city.

The blockaders, from a variety of US peace organisations, called on the US to abolish its…

Anti-Trident activists occupied a ruined church in Plymouth for the day on 28 April. The Tamarians affinity group put up banners (including ‘Vote Out Trident’) in Charles church, which was bombed in the Second World War and is now a war memorial.

The local Conservative candidate said: ‘People gave so much for the freedom of this country…. Charles Church is symbolic of those sacrifices and I object to it being politicised in this way.’