| Getting the Abolition Party Started |
| Written by Sarah Cartin | |||
| Monday, 10 May 2010 23:12 | |||
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In the midst of my post-travel-jetlagged-volcanic-ash-chasing-Ronan-from-Boyzone-spotting-US-'terrorist'-alert-drama-lost-luggage-tracking-UK-election-chaos-and-back-to-work-flurry of activity, here is my speech to the Gensuikyo Meeting at the Riverside Church, NPT Review Conference on May 3rd, 2010. Huge thanks to CND staff colleagues in London, from whose excellent briefing papers I borrowed heavily. Any mistakes are my own. Following the speeches, we welcomed questions and comments from among the 1600 delegates in the room. I was directly questioned by some of the Japanese College and High School students attending. In my enthusiasm, I may have invited all of them to Britian this summer, so I may be putting out requests in the next couple of months for friendly homestay accomodation! 'Konnichiwa. Friends, thank you. It is a real honour to be invited to represent CND at your meeting today and I bring with me warmest greetings from our Chair Kate Hudson who has remained in London to promote our anti-nuclear message during the Parliamentary elections that are taking place this week in Britain. I bring you greetings of peace from the UK and take home your kind welcome and the messages of peace you bought with you from the millions who signed the petitions to the NPT Review conference. We at CND continue to support your work of peace and we are honoured to be hosting the Hiroshima exhibition in London this summer. We are also very proud to be welcoming the Hibakusha who are accompanying the exhibition. The exhibition will take place in the Quaker Meeting House in central London and we are confident that thousands of people will see it and be involved in the hundreds of events taking place across the country to mark the anniversaries of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our Peace Education work has gone from strength to strength in recent years. We have a dedicated Peace Education worker who works with teachers and young people to spread the message of disarmament and keep alive the understanding of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the devastating impact of the nuclear attacks of 1945. Our Peace Education has bought together people from all walks of life to learn about the impact of nuclear weapons and tell stories such as Sadako’s Paper Cranes and Barefoot Gen. We were very pleased and honoured to welcome Hibakusha to our 50th anniversary events in 2008 and for their involvement in our Peace Education activities with young people in the UK. As the leading peace organisation in the UK, we continue to work to secure an end to nuclear weapons. We lobby, educate, campaign and organise to build our work at every stage. Our work in recent years has been guided by changes since the last NPT Review in 2005. It was only shortly after then that the British government signalled its commitment to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. Statements by the then Defence Secretary in September 2005 and by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown in June 2006, indicated the government’s commitment to developing a new generation of nuclear weapons, starting with replacing the Vanguard submarine launch platform around 2024. We were promised a public and parliamentary debate, but whilst they faced some scrutiny, the government has not engaged the public in discussion on the desirability or need for replacement. In the foreword to the White Paper released by the Ministry of Defence in December 2006, outlining the government’s intentions, Tony Blair said he backed a replacement because, ‘None of the present recognised nuclear weapons states intends to renounce nuclear weapons, in the absence of an agreement to disarm multilaterally, and we cannot be sure that a major nuclear threat to our vital interests will not emerge over the longer term.’ At CND, we recognise that the failure of other states to carry out disarmament commitments is no justification for the UK to back out on what it has also agreed, both in signing the NPT and in the regular affirmation of those commitments in international forums. The decision to replace Trident despite the inability to identify any specific current or future threat that nuclear weapons may deter or defend against, exposes the government’s unwillingness to carry out its obligations in good faith. The seat of British democracy, House of Commons was allowed one day’s discussion on Trident replacement and in the UK’s first democratic vote on pursuing a nuclear weapons system, the government faced significant opposition, including from many in its own party. 160 MPs voted against replacement. This opposition actually under-represents public opinion. Opinion polls now regularly show a majority against the replacement of the Trident system. The government has stated that a replacement for Trident will consist of another submarine-based system, with similar missiles and warheads, planned to come into service around 2024 with a lifespan of around 25 years. The timescale for introduction is over several decades and so there is plenty of time for the government to reverse its decision, but an early cancellation would support global initiatives. Not replacing Trident would be a significant step towards the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons. However, as we approach this general election, both Labour and Conservative parties have stated they will not include Trident replacement in a post-election Strategic Defence Review, guaranteeing its continuing role in UK ‘defence’ for decades to come. This is combined with the action taken to upgrade the UK nuclear weapons testing and research laboratory at Aldermaston. All despite changed attitudes and changed global conditions since the decision was taken in 2007. It is worth stating that the UK has never deployed a thermonuclear weapon of genuinely British origin – instead it has relied upon the assistance of the US to manufacture and deploy such weapons. The main mechanism for US-UK nuclear sharing is the Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA). First signed in 1958, the Treaty has been amended and extended several times. Very comprehensive, it facilitates the exchange of blueprints, special nuclear material, and components for nuclear weapons. It also covers missiles and the reactors for nuclear submarines. The MDA was signed just after the UK detonated its first hydrogen bomb. But this British hydrogen bomb design was never put into production and since then Britain has based its warhead design on US models. Currently, Royal Navy submarines take a number of Trident missiles from a common pool. There are no distinct UK missiles. At least three key components are procured from the US and there are extensive consultations over design and production. A case can be made that these exchanges are so comprehensive that they constitute the transfer of nuclear explosive devices in breach of Article I of the NPT. CND believes the US and UK governments should end their exchange of nuclear weapons information and materials in the interest of respecting their obligations under the NPT and promoting, rather than deterring disarmament. Since the decision to replace Trident was made, Ministers have engaged in more positive rhetoric on disarmament which contradicts the replacement proposals. Since the vote there have been some encouraging statements from government figures, particularly recognising the relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation, but none that have considered scrapping the proposed replacement. In June 2007, as the then new Prime Minister, in a speech seen as the announcement of his new nuclear weapons policy, marking a shift in position from that of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown’s Foreign Secretary stated that: ‘the world risks becoming mired in a sterile stand-off between those who care most about disarmament and those who care most about proliferation. Any solution must be a dual one that sees movement on both proliferation and disarmament – a revitalisation, in other words, of the grand bargain struck in 1968, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was established.’ It is welcome that the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s ‘Nuclear 2010’ document, produced in advance of this Review Conference, states equally the need to ‘strengthen the non-proliferation regime’ and ‘offer a clear and credible forward plan on nuclear disarmament’. The test will be whether or not such a plan can be reached. CND believes that the UK must put the non replacement of Trident and a timetable for the dismantling of the existing system into the negotiations. Cancelling Trident replacement and taking steps to disarm the UK’s current nuclear weapon system could be a significant contribution towards a wider agreement to secure a Nuclear Weapon Convention. As this Review Conference starts in the same week as our UK general election, it is worth reflecting on the lack of support in Britain for possession of nuclear weapons. Opinion polls over a number of years have shown historically high levels of opposition to nuclear weapons. A Nuclear Weapons Convention not only has widespread popular support amongst the British public and worldwide, but has already been backed by a majority of states party to the NPT, including 127 voting in favour of such a mechanism at the UN General Assembly in 2007, of which three were states with nuclear weapons. We welcome the UK government’s acceptance that a Nuclear Weapons Convention could be the ‘logical underpinning of a nuclear weapons free world’ but we regret that the government believes a new conference or body to discuss a convention at this stage could undermine the NPT. On the contrary, such a treaty would provide the concrete framework to accomplish the NPT goal of nuclear disarmament. Without the willingness to initiate a serious international disarmament programme, the nuclear weapon states will continue to be perceived as ‘persistent proliferators’, not only for replacing and enhancing their own nuclear weapon systems but for the signal it sends to other states. CND believes that if the UK and the other nuclear weapon states party to the NPT are to achieve such a nuclear weapon free world, they need to propose measures such as the Convention – or specific initiatives to achieve the same goal – at this year’s Review Conference. In addition, we do have support in the European Parliament, and this is an area that we can work together with colleagues – particularly in France, a fellow nuclear state, to build pressure and take action to push our governments to take the concrete steps required for disarmament. I thank you again for your invitation today and I hope that all our work together will bring about the peaceful, secure and sustainable future we all desire. Thank you.' Thank you if you made it to the end! Despite the news dominance of the UK elections, the NPT Review Conference is still taking place and CND colleagues and other good organisations are still blogging and updating on all the action at the United Nations. My aim is to put some of this information together over the next few days, and put up the fantastic photos from the NYC anti-nuclear demo. Bear with me! Peace is the other news...
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