Having been involved in anti-nuclear campaigns and actions for the past 20 years, it's with something of a heavy heart that I write this critique of Faslane365. I kind of got dragged in at the last minute because two possible contributors fled the country when they realised the deadline was approaching -- cowards!
There are two personal reasons for feeling a certain weight of treachery for writing this: firstly I really would like to see some genuine grassroots mass social movement…
As campaigners gathered at US military sites on 3 and 4 July to call for British “Independence from America”, others were digesting a Defence Select Committee report, released on 30 June, which called on the government to address - amongst other things - the independence of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, in any public debate on the replacement of Trident.
The fifty-page committee report is the result of the Defence Select Committee's inquiry, held earlier this year. The week of…
The Defence Committee's first report on Trident replacement was much better than I had dared hope for.
Of course it didn't oppose a replacement, but the fact that it listed abolition as one of the options on the table was positive in itself. Most importantly , at this moment in the political process, it added its voice --with considerable force--to the demand for a full debate,with proper government participation. But ever larger numbers of people are actually now explicitly…
On 20 June three US Plowshares activists entered the E-9 Minuteman silo in North Dakota.
A Roman Catholic priest and two war veterans used a sledgehammer and household hammers to disable the lock on the personnel entry hatch which provides access to the warhead. They also hammered on the silo lid, which covers the 300 kiloton nuclear warhead and painted “It's a sin to build a nuclear weapon” on the face of the 110-ton hardened silo. As has become a familiar element of Plowshares…
As reported in last month's PN, `twas the season for AGM-related protests. Here's a quick roundup of protest at three of the worst companies' annual junkets:
BAE SystemsAlbert Beale writes... The AGM of Britain's biggest purveyor of armaments - BAE Systems - was as usual a target for anti-arms trade activists, both inside and outside the meeting on 4 May.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade's street theatre outside, showing members of the government as poodles…
Between 18 and 21 May, the fifth annual Trident Ploughshares peace camp was set up in a public park directly opposite Devonport dockyard in Plymouth. Only the river Tamar came between the peace pirates and HMS Victorious, the Trident submarine which is currently in for a refit.
About 30 people were actively participating in the camp activities, and far more folk passed through as they walked their dogs and aired their kids. Local support for the camp was overwhelmingly positive from a…
Block the Builders returned to AWE Aldermaston on 15 May for the now-monthly blockade in protest against the development of new nuclear weapons facilities at the warhead factory.
Despite a large police presence, the group managed to blockade the nearby Lafarge cement works, targeted because of their contracts to supply AWE with concrete for new building foundations. The Aldermaston Lafarge depot was closed for one hour. One woman locked on to the cement hopper and one man was…
Between 7 and 21 April, cyclists rode from Faslane to London to protest at the continued persecution of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu by the Israeli government.
Stops over the fifteen-day ride included Glasgow, Carlisle, Manchester, Stoke, Birmingham, Oxford, and London, with the riders covering over five hundred miles. Along the way, riders held events to raise awareness for Vanunu and the dangers of continued nuclear development. The cyclists also took donations to help to…
At April's blockade, in addition to the regular presence at the construction traffic's main entrance to AWE Aldermaston, Block the Builders decided to deploy their “away team” on a visit to John Stacey's yard in Tadley.
John Stacey is a contractor involved in providing building machinery and deliveries of sand and aggregate from a nearby quarry for the new developments at AWE, including the Orion laser facility. But not first thing on Monday 10 April, when their vehicles were locked…
A few months ago, The Mole was musing about the idea of a peace movement “Bacon Number, where we see how many links - of some defined sort! - it takes to build a connection between different peaceniks.
Well, a related thought was inspired by the recent death of John Profumo. (Recap for younger readers who haven't been following the news: he was the War Minister - yes, the government used more honest terminology in those days - who resigned, in 1963, after a famous scandal involving…
A county-wide campaign against the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system has taken off in Somerset.
Following a talk by Bruce Kent in Bridgwater, eight Somerset peace/CND groups formed a campaign coalition. Towns around the county will be targeted, with supporters handing out leaflets about Trident and collecting signatures for the CND Petition Against Trident Renewal. They started in Taunton, which does not have an anti-war/anti-nuclear group. However, due to the…
Back in the summer of 2002, Britain's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE - the place where British nuclear weapons are manufactured) published a document in which they outlined a raft of new facilities they intended to build over the coming years. Entitled the Site Development Strategy Plan, the contents of the document, combined with the recruitment of new scientists at the nuclear sites, provoked some antinuclear campaigners to consider whether a new generation of nuclear weapons was on the…
In another life I was a teacher, and I recall that in the early nineties we used the tag Design Model to explain how injustice was embedded in formal educational institutions.
In the Scottish case the well-intentioned move to universal public education in the nineteenth century was underpinned by assumptions which gave us an institution (and buildings) designed for the a favoured group, which had the obvious characteristics of being white, male, middle class, able-bodied, straight,…
On Sunday 12 February, a group of anti-nuclear campaigners and activists gathered in front of the Camel's Head Gate at the Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth to protest against the agreement between the city of Plymouth and the Ministry of Defence to refit Britain's Trident nuclear submarines.
HMS Vanguard was refitted at the dockyard between 2003 and 2004 and, in early 2005, HMS Victorious came in for its refit; it is expected to remain there for two to three years. Refits of the other…
“No Nuclear Hypocrisy - Report on UK Nukes,” read dozens of placards outside the BBC's Portland Place HQ on Thursday 9 February. CND called the midday protest to draw attention to the BBC's failure to report fairly on the nuclear non-proliferation obligations of all nations.
Speaking about BBC Radio 4's Today programme of 31 January, Bruce Kent, CND Vice-President, said, “Once again the BBC has run an item on Iran without any mention of the major breach by the `declared' nuclear…
