A vigil on The Mound, Edinburgh Photo: Stop Trident
The event has been called by a wide coalition of groups active against nuclear weapons and NATO, and pro-independence campaigns, including Scottish CND, Trident Ploughshares, Stop the War Coalition, Faslane Peace Camp, the Scottish Green Party and the Radical Independence Campaign. In recent weeks, many more have added their names to the list of supporters, with both the Scottish Trade Unions Council and the…
On 3 February, long-term peace activists Sylvia Boyes and Mary Millington were arrested attempting to enter the Faslane nuclear submarine base one week after David Cameron pledged to increase defence spending including investment in nuclear weapons. The pair were charged with criminal damage for cutting the fence and spray-painting.
Sylvia said: ‘The building work and development for the Trident replacement at Aldermaston AWE…
Protest is alive and well in Berkshire at Aldermaston and Burghfield, the two facilities of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), where all British nuclear weapons have been designed and made. In 1985, Greenham Women set up Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC) – and we are still there. Whatever the weather, you can find us on the second weekend of every month outside the ‘Citadel’ (A340) gate – look for the peace flags and banners!
“AWE has a poor safety record, with fires,…
On this day, the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, our intention is to use our bodies to peacefully halt the daily business of preparing for nuclear war. To shut down the UK’s most expensive military spending operation!
Our hope is that this will be the beginning of a new wave of anti-Trident activism in Scotland, a new wave that will see new faces hold hands and lay down on the road with those who’ve been doing this for decades. A new wave that we hope will bring…
This banner was designed and made by the women of Llandrindod, Wales in 1981. The banner, which is now in the Bradford Peace Museum, was made for the ‘Women for Life on Earth Peace March’ from Cardiff to Greenham Common which marked the start of the Greenham Common women’s peace camp. Photo: Bradford Peace Museum
On 4 December, three US peace activists, including an 82-year old nun, sister Megan Rice, were charged with injuring national defence premises, a crime under the US Sabotage Act with a maximum sentence of 20 years.
In July 2012, sister Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli (the ‘Transform Now Plowshares’) entered a uranium storage facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and splashed blood and spray-painted messages of peace on the walls.
The three acknowledge their…
But there’s no time to celebrate, because the process of planning the replacement for Trident is already under way. If we want a nuclear-free future we have to act now.
The two options under consideration are wholesale replacement of the Trident system of specialised nuclear-powered submarines and missiles; or a ‘tactical’ system of smaller missiles which can carry thermonuclear warheads but be launched from regular submarines. The costs for this option have not been spelled out…
On 19 November, following the Trident Ploughshares (TP) annual meeting in London, 15 TP members headed to the UK headquarters of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin: Cunard House, 15 Lower Regent St. Two people climbed up beside the doors, others leafleted and held banners across the entrance: ‘Lockheed Martin Maker of Weapons of Mass Murder’ and ‘Use Your Skills For Peace’.
Lockheed Martin has a £3.5bn contract from the British government to design and build a new generation of…
‘The state is not a person, it is all of us,
And we all have to choose the way it goes.
Do we choose life?
Do we choose death?
Do we collude in murder?’
(From Trident: a British War Crime by Camilla Cancantata)
On 16 October, on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff, people came and sang, other people came and spoke out, and a gaggle of Rebel Clowns and three great big red dragons staged the downfall of a nuclear…
Can you let me know what progress has been made regarding recognising the actions of Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov to prevent nuclear war?
I emailed the Nobel Committee suggesting they should recognise achievements posthumously but I’ve had not a reply. I saw a documentary some years ago about this gentleman’s actions and have had him as a hero since.
The Conservative-led government is committing billions to military spending while forcing through massive cuts in jobs and services, and reducing support for badly-needed green technologies.
The government has already spent £2bn on developing and deploying pilotless drone aircraft over the past five years, using some of them to kill an unknown number of Afghan civilians…
It is not enough for the anti-cuts movement to be a defensive, responsive movement. It is not enough to point out the flaws in the arguments for austerity (as the False Economy website does so brilliantly).
If we are going to have a world worth living in, we are going to have to merge together the agendas of the anti-cuts movement, the green movement, the labour movement and the peace movement.
We are already arguing for…
Last week I received an email from a friend in England who seemed amazed that independence issues like the forced removal of Trident and NATO membership were getting quite radical coverage in the Scottish media. Their surprise was framed in a way that suggested few people south of the border are fully aware of the scale of the Scottish independence debate and the potential it has to force nuclear disarmament on the UK.
There is no doubt that independence is a subversive demand that…
Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond (of the Scottish Nationalist Party, SNP) has announced that if Scots vote for independence in the 2014 referendum, the nation's new constitution would explicitly outlaw nuclear weapons.
The proposal was announced on 7 October, a day after the pro-independence Scottish Green…
Questioning France's nuclear arsenal is not quite taboo, but the myth that it enables the country to retain great power status is accepted slavishly by most politicians, and with resigned passivity by the majority of the press and population.
Nevertheless, there is a strong and diverse protest movement.
One strand, closest to the Green party, opposes nuclear weapons as an extension of its opposition to nuclear energy. Just as nuclear weaponry is supposed to guarantee military…
