GREEN Party leader Natalie Bennett, speaking today at London CND’s Hiroshima Day 68th Anniversary Ceremony, called for an immediate stop to be put to Britain’s nuclear weapons programme.
She noted that last week a report by the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator was released showing significant ongoing problems with Britain’s five Trafalgar-class submarines, which it said were operating at the “end of their 'bathtub' reliability curves”. The report included an account of an eight-day leak of radioactive coolant from the reactor of HMS Tireless in February.
The use of the Trafalgars has been extended because of ongoing problems with the planned replacement Astute class submarines, only two of five of which are in the water.
Bennett said: “There’s a simple solution to this problem. Let’s stop Britain's nuclear weapons programme and start pulling all of the
submarines out of the water.
“We know that the planned Trident nuclear missile replacement programme would cost over £100 billion over its life. It’s easy to spend time imagining how we might spend that money instead, on hospitals, on schools, on other essential social services.
“But it’s important that that comes second. First we need to ask ‘under what circumstances would a British Prime Minister fire a nuclear weapon?’ I cannot imagine those circumstances, so why are keeping these weapons of mass destruction, and in so doing actively harming efforts at global nuclear disarmament?"