Labour CND committee member Rae Street is doing her single-handed best to keep the UK government’s shameful role in the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen in full view, with regular letters to the national press. Here’s why….
Understandably, there is at the moment much in the media about the war in Ukraine where there is absolute carnage. However, what is not understandable is the complete lack of coverage of other conflicts in Somalia, Gaza, Ethiopia, but especially the war in the Yemen.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade estimates that over 377,000 have died in the Yemen, either directly through the fighting or indirectly from hunger and disease. Shelter Box, the donations point for the charity Shelter, is appealing for funds for shelters which they are now managing to get through to the Yemen.
Their leaflet describes Yemeni families living in ‘nests’, that is a form of pitiful shelter built from scraps of metal and material. I have never before heard the word ‘nest’ used in that way.
The UK government has been instrumental in bringing this about. The UK is part of the Saudi-led coalition and it is UK arms, including fighter planes from BAE Systems, which have been sold to Saudi Arabia.
Those arms are currently pounding the Yemen and murdering the people. It is shameful that the UK government supports Saudi Arabia. The UK should not be in the war coalition, should not be selling and shipping arms to Saudi Arabia.
Where is the outrage at the humanitarian catastrophe there?
Labour CND Chair Carol Turner’s blog on the Ukraine crisis launches with the announcement that the UK is about to become the sixth European Nato member to host American nuclear weapons. Keep tuned in for updates
The world is closer to nuclear war than we’ve been for decades, closer perhaps than ever before. Strained relations between Russia and the US over Nato’s eastward expansion touched boiling point at the end of February, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was followed by the announcement that Russian nukes were being moved to special alert.
What’s needed is cool council, encouragement to de-escalate the war and negotiate a stable end to this dangerous conflict. Instead, the belligerent rhetoric of the US, Britain and other European Nato members adds weight to the emerging view that Nato would welcome a long and protracted war in order to exhaust Russia – and consequences for the people of Ukraine be damned.
Against this looming possibility of nuclear war, a report by Hans Kristensen, Nuclear Information Project Director at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) gives cause for us to be very afraid. The UK, he says, is set to become the sixth European Nato member to host American nuclear weapons on our territory.
Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey already have US nuclear weapons stationed within their borders. FAS estimates around 100 US nuclear bombs are deployed in these five countries.
US Department of Defence (DoD) documents suggest the UK has been added to the list of nuclear weapons storage locations. Kristensen believes RAF Lakenheath, 80 miles northeast of London, is likely to be that facility. In the past, Lakenheath was used to store US Air Force (USAF) nuclear gravity bombs. The facilities to do so are still intact.
This analysis by FAS comes as Lakenheath is getting ready to become the first USAF base in Europe equipped with the latest generation of nuclear-capable fighter-bomber aircraft. The first of the F-35As arrived at Lakenheath in December last year; the US is due to begin training in the next 12 months.
Kristensen points out there is no public indication from Nato yet that it intends to store nuclear bombs in Lakenheath. He speculates that its upgrade ‘could potentially be intended to increase the flexibility of the existing nuclear deployment within Europe, without increasing the number of weapons’. In other words, with a war with Russia in the offing, Lakenheath could receive nuclear weapons from existing European Nato locations to ‘better realign the overall nuclear posture in Europe’.
Arms Control Association Director Daryl Kimball, however, told the Guardian he saw the upgrade of the UK storage facilities as: ‘an early sign that the US and Nato are preparing to engage in a protracted and maybe heightened standoff with Putin’s Russia.’
Meanwhile, the British government is working hand in glove with Nato and the US on Ukraine. Prime Minister Johnson’s recent announcement of increased military assistance to President Zelensky, including supplying offensive weaponry, is fanning the flames of a war that could stretch across Europe and beyond.
Keeping the people of Britain safe should be foremost amongst the UK government’s concerns. Creating the conditions for siting American nuclear weapons in Britain is tantamount to painting a target on the back of everyone in the UK.
This Tory government could and should be playing a supportive role in negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict, not helping escalate it. And Labour should be demanding it do so from across the opposition benches, not trailing in Johnson’s wake.
Read Hans Kristensen full report, Lakenheath Air Base Added To Nuclear Weapons Storage Site Upgrades, 11 April 2022 here See Julian Borger and Sam Sabbagh, UK military vaults upgraded to store new US nuclear weapons, Guardian 12 April 2022 here
Join Labour CND’s Sam Mason and Daniel Blaney at this webinar organised by CND’s Trade Union Advisory Group on Monday 9 May at 19:00. Sam Mason, who represents her union on the Trade Unions for Energy Democracy initiative, will be speaking on sustainability. She joins MV Ramana , a physicist and expert on small modular nuclear reactors, who is Professor of Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia . Daniel Blaney will chair the webinar on behalf of CND. Register here
Register now for Labour CND’s not-to-be-missed annual conference. We’ll be debating the way forward for a Labour foreign policy based on peace, people and planet, with:
Richard Burgon MP // Tom Unterrainer CND Chair // Margaret Kimberly Black Alliance for Peace // Katy Clark MSP// Jess Barnard Young Labour // Stuart Parkinson Scientists for Global Responsibility // Mish Rahman NEC // Sam Mason Labour CND’s climate specialist // with a musical interlude from Labour CND’s own Sam Browse.
Events in Ukraine bring the prospect of nuclear war closer. The AUKUS pact with Australia and the US intensifies a new Cold War with China. The British government is pledged to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile. Energy price hikes have renewed dthe role of nuclear power in the UK’s energy mix.
Now more than ever Labour needs a foreign policy based on peace and climate justice.
Military posturing fans the flames of war in Europe
Keir Starmer has chosen the moment of mounting tensions over Ukraine to announce that ‘Labour’s commitment to Nato is unshakable’, attempting to justify his stance with selective and inaccurate statements about the defensive and democratic character of the North Atlantic Alliance and accusing those who disagree of showing solidarity with Putin.
Nato is not ‘a defensive alliance that has never provoked conflict’ nor does it provide a ‘guarantee of democracy and security’ as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere will readily testify, whose countries have been shattered and lives destroyed by two decades of war.
Neither has Nato ‘ushered in what is now approaching three-quarters of a century of peace between the nations of Europe’. Nato’s bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999 was the first military attack on a sovereign European country since the end of World War II. It took place without UN approval and is widely regarded as illegal under international law.
Even Denis Healey, who Starmer describes as a ‘giant of the Labour movement’, argued: ‘It was a terrible mistake to attack a sovereign state without even consulting the United Nations… we should have asked Richard Holbrooke [US ambassador to the UN] to have another go at negotiation.’
In contradistinction to the benign picture Starmer seeks to paint, Nato’s evolution includes:
The North Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear-armed alliance committed to using nuclear weapons pre-emptively in a military conflict whether or not its adversaries possess nuclear weapons. Since the 1950s, Nato has rejected successive calls to adopt a nuclear no-first use policy.
Declassified US documents testify to the fact that the use of nuclear weapons was actively considered during Nato’s first military engagement, the Korean war of 1950-53.
The Warsaw Pact dissolved in July 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By contrast Nato extended its area of operations. In the ensuing three decades, it has expanded its mission statement and enlarged its membership.
There are currently 30 Nato member states. Additionally, Nato works with 40 non-member partner states across the globe on a wide range of political and security-related issues. Full Nato members in East Europe include Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Albania, and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which border Russia. Nato partners with borders on Russia include Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Russia’s near abroad – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – are also Nato partners.
Three Nato members are nuclear weapons states – Britain, France and the US. Five European members – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey – host US nuclear weapons on their territories and are pledged to deploy them if Nato so commands.
Tensions between Nato and Russia have been building for three decades. Ukraine must not become the pretext for a military clash between two nuclear armed adversaries.
Labour CND calls for de-escalation and dialogue, not a build-up of armaments and troops leading to the brink of a war in which the people of Ukraine will be the losers. This is a strategy of sanity, in contrast to the military posturings of Britain and the US which fan the flames of war in Europe.
Samantha Mason is a member of the Labour CND committee and a well-known climate and just transition activist. This is the first of her climate blog for us, putting nuclear back into the climate equation.
Nuclear power is no solution to our energy crisis
The nuclear industry is losing no time in using the current energy and related cost of living crisis to bolster its position as a ‘silver bullet’ for the climate crisis. A contested technology in the transition to decarbonised power, it divides trade unions and labour movement more widely, and it isn’t entirely settled in the climate movement.
Nuclear power generation has been declining globally, and as recently as 2019, the International Energy Agency whilst supporting nuclear in the energy mix, was questioning its future. Even as recent as 2006, the then Sustainable Development Commission didn’t see nuclear as part of the future energy mix. So why the resurgence now?
At the United Nations COP26 climate talks in Glasgow last year, on the one hand the nuclear industry was crying foul that they had been omitted from the talks, and opportunity to put their case to the public as a grossly misunderstood industry. On the other side, there was a clear presence of the nuclear industry with several interventions including a letter signed by trade union leaders stating that the “world needs much more clean, reliable and affordable energy, and our members need secure, quality employment. Nuclear delivers both, and that’s why we need more nuclear.”
Clearly the challenge of decarbonising the power sector, and linked to it industry, transport and agriculture, is enormous as we seek to ‘electrify everything’ in a rapidly diminishing timeframe to have any chance of staying within the 1.5 degrees of global heating by the end of the century. This includes serious technical and resource questions before we even get to think of the economic and social questions of transition, and notably jobs.
But as our climate doomsday clock gets closer to midnight, its time we really put this debate to bed, and focus on developing a plan that coordinates across the whole economy and energy system. This includes understanding what we need energy for.
Firstly, there is nothing misunderstood about the nuclear industry. It’s an old industry therefore the arguments on safety, length of construction time and cost overruns, waste disposal is well evidenced and understood, globally.
Proponents of nuclear power argue the need for baseload power and its low carbon status. However interestingly one of the arguments against new nuclear by the SDC in 2006 was its inflexibility and applying a “big-bang [nuclear] fix” would undermine efforts to develop renewable power generation and energy efficiency measures. Today we see this too with the proposal for new nuclear techno fixes such as Small Modular Reactors or the elusive quest for nuclear fusion.
There is no denial that trade unions should fight for the jobs of their members across the industries and sectors they represent. But we also need to be visionaries. For an industry in decline, the skills of its current and future workers can be applied to the energy transition, and other work related to decarbonisation through a process of Just Transition. The construction workers, building trades and pipe fitters are still needed. More specialist roles which require particular nuclear science knowledge will not go away given the long legacy costs of nuclear power around decommissioning and waste. There is plenty of work to be done and the nuclear sector has been no less immune by the attacks on workers agreements as other sectors.
It is here that perhaps we get to understand why this renaissance for nuclear power and why we also have to question what this energy is for. The need for a civilian sector to support a nuclear defence program is clear, and as outlined in the UK Government’s Nuclear Sector Deal. Research by academics at the university of Sussex provide some of the most compelling evidence on this. And certainly the UK government’s increasing posturing around nuclear weapons supports this.
Finally, no energy solution can be assessed outside a framework of justice – for communities faced with uranium mining, and for workers who have been exposed to serious health risks. And then there is wider justice for the victims of the nuclear industry that date to its origins from the development of nuclear weapons.
At the COP last year, we heard the harrowing reality for small island states and other climate vulnerable communities who have done least to contribute to climate change. This includes pacific island nations that have already suffered the horrors as testing grounds for the UK’s and US nuclear weapons.
If we want real justice, and a future for everyone on this planet, it’s time we came clean and ended our love affair with the atom. Nuclear power won’t solve any of the crises we are currently facing, and as it stands, is a deterrent to achieving a democratic and publicly owned energy transition that we urgently need.
with Katy Clark MSP // Margaret Kimberley, Black Alliance for Peace USA // Sam Mason, Labour CND // Stuart Parkinson, Scientists for Global Responsibility // Tom Unterrainer CND
SAVE THE DATE and watch out for more details Sunday 3 April, 12 noon to 14.30
Labour CND Vice President Richard Burgon gave a powerful summary of priorities after Labour Party conference. If you missed Arise’s live webinar, you can catch it here
Labour CND Co-Chair Julie Ward raised AUKUS and Global Britain at a Greater Manchester CND meeting, part of a week of protest action during Tory Party conference.Labour CND committee member Rae Street in the #NursesNotNukes bloc at the Tories Out march in Manchester
