CND UK has a stall at the Labour Assembly Against Austerity Annual Conference in London this coming Saturday, 28th October. If you’ve a few hours to spare to help with this, please contact CND’s Campaigns Officer directly at Sara.Medi.Jones@cnduk.org. In return for helping us share information about CND at the stall, you’ll get a free ticket to the event.
Today the Morning Star reported that BAE Systems is set to announce the loss of 1000 jobs from it’s jet fighter construction sites in Lancashire. This will produce tremendous hardship for the individuals concerned as well as for the community and ultimately the Country.
This workforce is highly skilled and highly paid. Once again we see that the Arms Industry does not provide secure jobs. Steve Turner of Unite asks that the next generation of fighter jets be built in this country. This is NOT the answer. People are not buying these planes, hence the job losses.
The only way to provide secure, sustainable jobs is to look to diversify the Arms Industry, producing socially useful products, not planes designed to kill, often innocent men, women and children. Such planes as these are being used by Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen adding to the devastation of that Country. We now have a chance to look seriously at diversification into such as off-shore wind power generation using the skills of this workforce. Such a programme has been proposed by the Labour Party through it’s shadow Defence Diversification Agency.
The Arms Industry kills. We need more electricity generating capacity. Off-shore wind and tidal power are ways of doing it at the same time protecting the jobs of this workforce.
Dr Christopher Butler, Yorkshire Labour CND rep.
This is the full statement published by Jeremy Corbyn on LabourList after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of hundreds of NGOs based in Geneva.
Congratulations to the In
ternational Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on its well-deserved award of the Nobel Peace Prize.
I’m proud to have worked with ICAN for the goal of a nuclear free world for many years and the Nobel Committee’s call for serious global nuclear disarmament talks demands an urgent response.
The need to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, killing millions upon millions of innocents and wrecking our planet. is becoming ever more pressing. Sadly, Theresa May and the Conservatives have tried to turn the issue into a party political game.
They are deeply irresponsible. Acting to prevent war, especially nuclear war, should be the starting point of any serious and sensible defence and foreign policy.
The tensions on the Korean Peninsula underline the urgency of the nuclear powers’ obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to bring about nuclear disarmament.
We have to wind down the rhetoric now. As a member of the [United Nations] Security Council, Britain has an important responsibility and role to play. The next Labour government will ensure Britain takes a lead in strengthening global peace and security.
Reproduced from LabourList
The crisis on the Korean Peninsula is bringing the region closer to open military conflict than it’s been for many years, with unimaginable humanitarian consequences. By accident or design, the actions by North Korea and the United States could result in a nuclear detonation.
The war of words between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, reflects escalating provocations on both sides.
On 7 July the UN adopted the first-ever, legally-binding Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The UK boycotted the UN’s global nuclear ban negotiations. Britain greeted the treaty’s adoption with a statement signed jointly with the US and France, declaring: ‘We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.’
A month later, President Trump was threatening ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’.
Continue reading “Korean Peninsula
THE SHADOW OF NUCLEAR WAR”
Wednesday 11th October, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Victoria Embankment, SW1A 2JR
with
Fabian Hamilton MP, Labour Shadow Peace and Disarmament Minister
Christine Shawcroft, Labour Party National Executive Committee
Daniel Blaney, Labour CND
Fifty three countries signed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on 20 September, the first day it opened for signature. But the UK government has refused ever to sign it. Labour’s manifesto promises to create a Minister for Peace and Disarmament, part of its commitment to reducing human suffering caused by war by focussing on protecting civilians, conflict prevention and resolution, and peace-building, London CND asks if and how these policies can reshape the war culture of past decades.
All welcome
The Pentagon is starting to spend £200m at Croughton, building the new Joint Intelligence Analysis Centre, developing this base’s communication, command and control systems into a ‘major intelligence base’.
Oxford CND invites you to a march and rally at USAF Croughton, on Saturday 7th October, 12.00 noon – 4.00pm. See details on below leaflet and map.
Most people know that Trident, Britain’s submarine fleet is based at Faslane in Scotland. But do you know where other nuclear weapons and nuclear power facilities or US bases are? CND has produced an interactive map of nuclear Britain.
Click here to find out what nuclear dangers are lurking near by your neighbourhood.
If you’re visiting Brighton be sure to say hello to CND. We have a stall there and are holding a fringe meeting on Sunday evening, details below.
TOWARDS A NUCLEAR FREE WORLD
Cancel Trident replacement, support the nuclear ban treaty
Sunday 24 September 6pm to 7.30pm
St Paul’s Church, West Street, Brighton
(5 minutes from the Conference Centre)
with…
Diane Abbott MP
Shadow Home Secretary
Fabian Hamilton MP
Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament
Christine Blower
International Sec, National Education Union
Christine Shawcroft
Labour NEC
and
George Downs
National Policy Forum
http://www.cnduk.org/get-involved/events/item/3544-cnd-fringe-meeting-at-labour-party-conference
Labour CND welcomes the decision of the TUC Congress 2017 to lobby the Labour Party to set up a Shadow Defence Diversification Agency before the next general election, and work to develop a national industrial strategy which includes the possibility of arms conversion.
Motion 17, Defence, jobs and diversification, from the Artists Union England, recalled the ground-breaking plan for alternative, socially useful work pioneered by the Lucas Aerospace workers in 1976. It highlighted ‘a convergence of crises – militarism and nuclear weapons, climate chaos, and the destruction of jobs by automation’, and acknowledged that defence workers ‘are rightly concerned about the potential loss of jobs, for example if Trident replacement is cancelled’.
Continue reading “TUC Congress calls for Shadow Defence Diversification Agency”
Did you know that despite heightened nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula Britain will be participating in US-led military exercises there for 10 days beginning Monday 21 August? These war games are a simulation of war with North Korea which involves around 85,000 land, sea and air personnel.
The government is keeping shtum about UK involvement – how many British forces and from which services will be taking part. But in the House of Lords in January, however, Defence Minister Earl Howe confirmed that the UK does take part in these exercises.
Corbyn’s response
Jeremy Corbyn has urged the government to refrain from military intervention in North Korea, including the forthcoming Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises.
Continue reading “UK participates in military exercises on Korean Peninsula”
