Called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in conjunction with Stop the War Coalition and the British Muslim Initiative, tens of thousands marched in London on 24 February, 2007, to protest against the Trident and against the imperial wars in the Middle East, including Iraq and the looming one on Iran. People were there to express their opposition to militarism, the 'war on terror' and demand justice for Palestine. Scotland for Peace's "Bin the Bomb Roadshow" also ran between 16 and 24 February, culminating in a march and rally on 24 February in Glasgow.
There was a small autonomous block on the demo [photos], but was apparently the focus of most of the policing and 'intelligence gathering' (see this Met leaflet).
Reports: 1 | 2 Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 Audio: 1 | 2 | video
Links: Trident Vote Day | CND | Stop the War Coalition | Block the Builders | Greenpeace | Trident Ploughshares | Faslane 365 | Background: BASIC | Acronym | Indymedia UK's Faslane topic page
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Anti-nuclear activists and campaigners have been in overdrive in recent months, following the publication of the government's defence White Paper in December. The White Paper outlines plans to replace/renew Britain's nuclear-armed submarine fleet and also suggests timescales for upgrading the Trident missiles and warheads which the submarines carry. Each of the 200 warheads in Britain's current Trident stockpile has a destructive power equivalent to eight Hiroshimas. The cost of renewing Trident is estimated at around £20bn initially, and up to £76bn over its deathspan.
In the week running up to the 24 February, demonstrations, campaigners projected a massive "No Trident replacement" banner onto the House of Commons, and well-known artists from the world of mainstream culture lined up to make their opposition to Trident public.
The government is expected to hold a parliamentary debate and vote on its proposals in mid-March. Greenpeace and CND are both asking for people to lobby their MPs to vote against the government. A diverse range of groups are planning events and actions for the day of the parliamentary vote and have set up a single website - tridentvoteday - with further information and links.
As part of the "Trident: we don't buy it" tour, Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise is expected to dock in the Thames in advance of the vote, to lend its support to the call for "No Trident" and arguing that the money would be better spent on tackling climate change.
Trident Ploughshares affinity group the Muriel Lesters have called a two-day event in London over the weekend of 24-25 February, with a "hunt the proliferators" action on Monday 26 February. TP have also called a blockade of AWE Aldermaston for 10 April.
Previous and ongoing
To facilitate the development of new warheads, Britain's Atomic Weapons Establishments (AWEs) Aldermaston and Burghfield (both in Berkshire), are currently receiving a massive inward investment - estimated by the construction industry at around £12bn over the next 12 years. New weapons facilities and support systems are being built. AWE themselves have compared the size of their project to that of Heathrow's Terminal 5.
In response to this, groups such as Block the Builders, the Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp(aign) and Trident Ploughshares have been carrying out regular announced and unannounced actions at the bomb factories. See previous reports: here and here.
In Scotland, Faslane 365 (F365) has kept up the pressure on the Trident submarines' home port, with rolling blockades of the naval base since 1 October, resulting in more than 500 arrests. The Faslane and Aldermaston Peace Camps have been on holiday exchanges, with Aldermaston women heading north of the border for the first few days of F365, while Faslane campers paid Aldermaston a visit on 23 January for an unnanounced four-hour blockade of the base.
Meanwhile Nukewatch has continued to track warhead convoy movements around the country and recently released this video footage of the convoy en route from AWE Burghfield to RNAD Coulport in western Scotland (warhead depot in next loch round from Faslane).
Mainstream disarmament campaigns such as Greenpeace and CND have joined with campers and blockaders for ongoing actions at AWE Aldermaston. In the run-up to the publication of the White Paper, more than 400 people descended on AWE in a "weapons inspection" organised by Greenpeace and Block the Builders.
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
Thank you for this message of peace
24.02.2007 14:33
The Where's Waldo of BushCo.
Fun Stuff
Homepage: http://bikesummer.org/CanRAND.html
hooray!
27.02.2007 06:46
nice one to all of you for bothering.
terri dactal
Nr 10 petitions- Trident 'reply' (Have sick bag ready)
14.03.2007 16:19
THis is the s***e email that the Gov sent out in esponse to the 10 Downing St petition on
TRident....
(ps My MP,is a dastardly Tory (M.Howard), though I tried to get him to at least vote for a deferral, he tetchily said there had been enough consulting and that the today's debate was enough, so will vote fully for it as previously advised........ anyone have some garlic & a wooden stake avail pls ??)
E-petition: Response from Margaret Beckett and Des Browne
The e-petition asking the Prime Minister to "champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system" has now closed. This is an email response from the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, and the Defence Secretary, Des Browne.
Thank you for signing an e-petition on the 10 Downing Street website, in which you asked that the UK reconsider replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system, and instead champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
We believe the NPT continues to offer the best hope of achieving the goal we all share - a world free from nuclear weapons. But deciding to maintain our deterrent is completely consistent with the NPT, and will not stop us playing a leading role in international efforts on non-proliferation and disarmament.
We know the British people want us to lead by example - we already do, and we intend to carry on doing so. Our weapons stockpile is the smallest of any recognised nuclear weapons state, less than 1% of the world total. We are the only recognised nuclear weapons state to have reduced our deterrent to a single submarine-based system. As part of the decision Parliament is voting on this week, we plan to reduce our stockpile even further - dismantling around 40 more warheads, or 20% of our remaining stockpile.
We are leading the way on non-proliferation and disarmament. We led international efforts on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We continue to work hard for the immediate start of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Kim Howells, Foreign Office Minister, recently attended the Geneva Conference on Disarmament to urge faster progress and re-energise multilateral negotiations.
We realise that some would like us to go further than this. But it just isn't realistic to think that if we decided to let our deterrent lapse, or even completely disarm unilaterally tomorrow, this would make any difference to the efforts of countries like Iran and North Korea to acquire a nuclear capability. We believe in total nuclear disarmament - but multilateral rather than unilateral disarmament. We face an increasingly uncertain world. Given that we cannot expect others' nuclear weapons to disappear for the forseeable future, the question we face is: should we retain them, to deter others from using them against us? Are we prepared to tolerate a world in which countries like ours lay down their nuclear weapons first, leaving extremist or unstable countries to threaten the rest of the world or hold it to ransom?
Any decision involving nuclear weapons is a difficult one, with strong views on all sides. We respect these views and believe it is important to have a full debate. But, as we said in the White Paper, we believe the plans we are asking Parliament to endorse strike the right balance between our commitment to a world in which there is no place for nuclear weapons, and our responsibilities to protect the current and future citizens of the UK.
Further information
The Prime Minister outlined plans for the future of Trident in a Parliamentary statement on 4 December 2006.
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10532.asp
Between 4 December 2006 and 1 March 2007 the MOD received 838 letters in response to the White Paper on the future of the UK's nuclear deterrent. Read public responses on the MOD website
If you would like to opt out of receiving further mail on this or any other petitions you signed, please email optout@petitions.pm.gov.uk
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15.03.2007 15:03
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Homepage: http://bikinibottom.blogsport.de/
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15.03.2007 16:16
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Homepage: http://bikinibottom.blogsport.de/
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30.12.2007 01:41
peter ambler
e-mail: tigger1946@fsmail