Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

hundreds descend on faslane for the big blockade

louise edge | 01.10.2007 10:02 | Faslane | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | Terror War

100 arrests so far as 600 actvists block entrances to faslane nuclear weapons base. alex salmond sends message of support to protestors

600 Shut Down Faslane Nuclear Weapons Base to Mark Year of Protest
Alex Salmond sends protestors message of support

October 1, 2007

600 protestors from across the UK and Europe shut down road access to the Faslane nuclear weapons base on the Clyde this morning.

At 7am protestors non violently blockaded the Northern gate to the base with their bodies. Some have locked and superglued themselves together to make it more difficult for them to be removed. At around 8.30am other protestors successfully blockaded the South Gate. With both gates blockaded there is now no road access to the weapons base, which is home to the UK ’s nuclear weapons-carrying Trident submarines.

By 10.30 am Strathclyde police had arrested an estimated 100 protesters, but as fast as they are removed more are taking their place.

More protestors are expected and blockades are planned to continue throughout the day. Drummers, clowns and singers, including acclaimed folk singer Roy Bailey, are entertaining the protesters, creating a carnival spirit to the protest.

Politicians from across the country will join the demonstrators later this morning, including six SNP MSP’s (Members of the Scottish Parliament), an MEP, two Green Party MSPs and at least one Labour MSP (1).

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has issued a statement backing to the event. He sent his “best wishes” to the protestors and said he “shares” Faslane 365’s “objective of removing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” (2).

Other messages of support have come in from clerics including the Head of the Scottish Catholic Church and Bishop of Reading Stephen Cotterell who said, ‘Our nation is demeaned and compromised by the presence of these weapons of mass destruction on our shores. The Church of England and most of the Christian churches in these islands stand united in calling upon our government to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our security’. (3)

Today’s Big Blockade celebrates the last day of the Faslane 365 year of peaceful blockading. Since Faslane 365’s campaign started on October 1, 2006, thousands of people have blockaded the base and more than 950 have been arrested. High profile participants have included former UN Assistant Secretary-General Prof. Sir Richard Jolly, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Adrian Mitchell, A.L.Kennedy, actor Roger Lloyd Pack and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.

Over the year of the blockade the nuclear issue has been high on the political agenda. In February 2007 the Westminster Parliament voted for producing another nuclear weapons system to replace Trident and tie the UK into holding nuclear weapons for the next fifty years. The vote inspired the largest backbench revolt since that over the decision to invade Iraq. However in a twist to the story in May 2007 the Scottish National Party was elected on a platform that included ‘kicking Trident out of Scotland ’. Later this month the SNP are holding a summit with civil society groups to discuss how to get rid of the UK ’s nuclear weapons. Westminster is vulnerable to the strong Scottish opposition to nuclear weapons (4) as Faslane is the only UK base suitable for the massive nuclear weapons carrying Trident submarines.

NOTES:

For further information on Faslane 365, the Trident deployments and the Big Blockade, including background and political context on the year long blockade, see the full Press Briefing Pack on the website. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(1) Politicians attending the Big Blockade will include: Bill Kidd MSP (SNP), Gil Paterson MSP (SNP), Bob Doris MSP (SNP), Bashir Ahmad MSP (SNP), Jamie Hepburn MSP (SNP) and Sandra White MSP (SNP), Marlyn Glen MSP (Labour), Robin Harper MSP (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cymru). For supportive quotes by these politicians visit the website www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(2) Full Alex Salmond statement: Alex Salmond’s office sent a letter on behalf of the First Minister to the Faslane 365 organizers conveying “his best wishes for a successful event” and affirming his full support for “responsible and peaceful protest against the replacement of Trident”. The letter further stated that Mr. Salmond “shares” Faslane 365’s “objective of removing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” and affirmed that “He is committed to doing whatever he can to persuade the UK government to alter its position on nuclear weapons.”

(3) Statements by church leaders:
Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Reading (Anglican): ‘I send greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the friend of the poor and the lover of peace. On the night before he died he said these words to his friends: Peace I give you, my own peace I leave with you, not as the world gives peace do I give to you. These words continue to challenge the powers and authorities of the world where there is still such misplaced confidence in a so called peace that can be secured by a so called deterrence. But these expensive and devastatingly destructive weapons cannot bring peace. They only encourage others to depend on force. They add to the instability of the world. They leech finances away from so many other things that could do so much good. Our nation is demeaned and compromised by the presence of these weapons of mass destruction on our shores. The Church of England and most of the Christian churches in these islands stand united in calling upon our government to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our security. This is the peace the world gives and it is not working. Let us turn instead to the peace of Christ who bids us turn our swords into ploughshares and our trident submarines into hospitals and schools. And it is my pleasure to send greetings and prayers to those of you who are gathering at Faslane today as you lament the madness of the world and bravely bear witness to the way of lasting peace’.

Keith Patrick Cardinal O’Brien, President, the Bishops Conference of Scotland (Catholic): ‘My dear friends gathered at Faslane, I wish to assure you that the position of the Roman Catholic Church with regard to weapons of mass destruction is perfectly clear and has been emphasised by myself in recent years. The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to weapons of mass destruction and has regularly spoken out against the possibility of the renewal of the Trident Nuclear Weapons system. I personally am happy to think that in the new political situation in the new Scottish Parliament, where a majority is opposed to Trident, further positive steps may be taken in Scotland to ensure that the Trident Nuclear Weapons System is not renewed. With my kindest regards and union of prayer

(4) An opinion poll carried out by ICM for Scottish CND on 26-29 January 2007 found that 73 % of those polled were opposed to the government spending £50 billion on a replacement for Trident.  http://www.banthebomb.org/newbombs/poll.htm.



louise edge

Additions

arrests mount at faslane...couplort also blockaded

01.10.2007 10:49

at 11.30 another 43 people were arrested at the faslane base for nonviolently blockading the gates - briging the total arrests to around 150. about 450 protestors remain blockading the base.

Protestors have also successfully bloackaded the roads into The Royal Naval Armament Depot (RNAD) at Coulport, Loch Long - where Trident nuclear missiles are stored.



louise edge


Comments

Hide the following comment

cacky 5live radio says 168 arrests,

01.10.2007 15:14

. . . . but doesnt explain why trident replacement, postcoldwar, is totally different from comissioning "trident" as a moscow bunker-buster in the cold war, or see the idiocy of reporting boltons "strangelove" bollocks trying to get a new war going in the middle east without saying that what he's arguing for is the pre-emption of a nation that HE says is "on the way" to getting a weapon a BIT like a fraction as world shattering as trident . . . . when that nations leader has said, this week, that the leaders that DO get nuclear weapons are "RETARDS".
Current affairs journalists . . . . ignore current affairs again - shock.BUT
Trident 2 shouldnt get explained by "us" as the "same old same old.
It means a VERY different thing these days - MUCH worse, that signpost to "each little nation or interestgroup its own nuke/chem/gas/bio TERRORWEAPON to use as a "warning shot" if its "interests" are threatened (to quote from the actual uk strategy documents).
Starwars idiocy is MUCH worse, too, . . . . good to hear "fae slaine" get into the news - but the fact that loads of armed forces experts, establishment strategists, etc AGREE with us - about BOTH these days, (despite the large "slushfund" payments that go to dodgy "opinion-influencer"types - IS due to the fact that this is 2007. . . . TerrorweaponUK 2007 is a different thing to "yetmorebombsforcoldwartreatiestoweighout".
The BURMA demo yesterday was also encouraging, here in the "smoke" - but it seems those same dodgy opinion-influencer types are trying to twist the coverage to pretend its all over. (see corporatewatch, then look at the weird "nlp" twists in much of the media - we're all "deconstucting" newsbroadcast priorities, newspaper layouts, keyphrases etc these days, in the same way people used to chat about how adverts were trying to sell us cars or carpets with "subtle" models winks, back in the nineties.)(good thing too).
YAAAAY by the way.
xxxx

d durham


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech