Nuclear weapons

Events in June left many with a sense of despair at the prospects for global peace. The killing of 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on 12 June was followed abruptly by the stabbing and shooting of the Labour MP Jo Cox at her constituency surgery in Yorkshire on Thursday 16 June. This in the midst of a hate-filled EU referendum campaign in the UK and the seemingly inevitable rise of the war-mongering Donald Trump in the US.

It’s enough to make anyone want to bury their…

As PN went to press, we were expecting a vote on Trident renewal in the British parliament, following the vote to leave the EU (23 June), the resignation of the British prime minister David Cameron (24 June), a vote of no confidence in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – 172 MPs voted against, only 40 in favour of him…

On 15 June, far-flung groups from Aberystwyth, Swansea, Knighton, Cardiff, Newport Gwent, Rhyl and Bangor joined others from all over Wales at the Atomic Weapons Establishment near Burghfield to protest against Trident and its replacement.

The Wales Day was part of a month of direct action organised by Trident Ploughshares, culminating in a ‘grand finale’ on 30 June with blockaders…

After the Brexit vote the view is suddenly full of huge new sprouting things, like Jack’s overnight beanstalk, but I want to look back a bit to the immediate aftermath of the Scottish parliament elections in May.

In the Scottish Scrap Trident coalition, we noted that the new Holyrood had a marked increase in MSPs belonging to…

The Truth About Trident sets out a blow-by-blow detailed analysis in advance of the forthcoming parliamentary debate about the renewal of Britain’s nuclear weapons’ system known as the ‘main gate’ decision later this year.

Despite the slightly disingenuous claim of the book that it will act as an objective ‘trial’ of the 30-year-old weapons system, Tim Wallis’s credentials as a leading peace activist reverses this expectation. As he states his intention is that ‘the moral…

The international Hiroshima-Nagasaki fast has been held for over 30 years now, as an act of sorrow and commemoration and as a form of protest against nuclear weapons. It continues to grow in support, numbers of participants, and international range from year to year. This year will be the fourth time that it is held in the UK, with a four-day fast from 6–9 August in Whitehall, central London.

Last year, about 150 people fasted in six different countries. In France, the fast is…

On 8 May, Mordechai Vanunu was charged with several crimes: talking to two US nationals three years ago; saying things – that were not broadcast – during a TV interview last September, something for which he has already been punished; and moving flats within the same building without informing the police.

Vanunu’s real ‘crime’ is that he revealed Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal in 1986 – something for which he has already served 12 years in prison. After the Israeli authorities…

This linocut print shows a table of people gathered to make origami cranes. They are located within a landscape derived from pictures of the area around Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August 1945. The cranes relate to the story behind the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima.

The monument shows a Japanese girl called Sadako holding up a crane. Sadako died from leukaemia as a result of radiation from the bomb. While she was in hospital, she set about making…

June 2016 will see a month of disarmament action against Trident at AWE Burghfield. Situated a few miles south-west of Reading, this is at the heart of the UK's nuclear weapons system. It is the final assembly line for the UK's nuclear warheads, and they return here for major maintenance work.

Opposition to Trident has spiralled rapidly in recent years. In Scotland,…

At 5.20pm, 10 March, Scottish Nukewatcher Brian Quail from Glasgow walked out onto a pedestrian crossing in Balloch, near Stirling, and stopped a nuclear warhead convoy on its way from AWE Burghfield to Coulport, where warheads are stored and loaded onto Trident submarines. More info: www.nukewatch.org.uk 

Around 30 people plus a red dragon, with musical accompaniment by Côr Cochion, Côr Gobaith and a trombone, demonstrated outside Merthyr Tydfil magistrates court on 3 February. What was it all about?

A group of Knighton residents are aiming to initiate a private prosecution against the UK secretary of state for defence for conspiring to commit a war crime. They are alleging that the deployment of Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapon system, is a crime.…

Three of us pensioners set off from Aberbanc at 5.15 in the morning of 27 March to meet up with a coach full of fellow protesters in Swansea for the Anti-Trident demo in London.

We made new contacts and shared networks on the journey up and back from London, always an important part of the overall occasion.

Luckily, the rain held off and, even though a cold wind blew, the people, old and young together,…

So what is the truth about Trident? The truth is that we live in a world that is not as it was in 1939–40, when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany and prevented an invasion by a combination of wits, luck, geography, will power, enormous self-sacrifice and the skill of some RAF fighter pilots. The idea that Trident would protect us in a similar situation is…

With conceptual work for replacement Trident submarines already eight years underway, it can seem as though the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system is inevitable. But the debate is not over, and grassroots activist and research organisations still hope to stop Trident replacement and pave the way for complete nuclear disarmament

The biggest event of the next few months will be the Stop Trident national demo, a rally and march to Trafalgar Square on 27 February,…

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…