Events
2013 UK Pilgrimage for Peace and Economic Justice
From Iona to Westminster
The aim of the 2013 Pilgrimage is to focus public attention on the Government’s proposal to spend £100 billion pounds renewing the Trident nuclear weapons system, while continuing to slash NHS, education and social welfare budgets.
The Pilgrimage will be organised in stages, and people will be invited to join in walking as many or few stages as they can manage.
As the Pilgrimage makes its way southwards, there will be numerous opportunities for local churches, Quaker Meetings and other groups along the route to promote discussion on Trident and wider issues of social and economic justice.
Will you join with us in walking some of the way between Iona and London next year? And if you can, in helping to arrange hospitality for participants in the Pilgrimage as it passes through your home area...
For further information and if you have any queries, see http://www.justpeacepilgrimage.com/
Welfare not Warfare
The People's Assembly
12:45pm, 22nd June
Side Hall 1, Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, London SW1H 9NH
The government is spending billions on war in Afghanistan while it wields the austerity axe on benefits, housing, health and education. Spending on the Trident nuclear submarine system is protected while libraries close and public sector workers see wage cuts. The wars of the past decade have had a terrible cost in human life and money, yet the government is planning to intervene again. How can we ensure money currently spent on arms and war is instead used to create equality and justice here and abroad?
With Salma Yaqoob, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Lindsey German (STW) and Kate Hudson (CND)
Nuclear and its Imagination: From Homer Simpson to Fukushima
Open City Docs Fest Conversation Event
2:30pm, 23rd June
At the end of World War II, nuclear was heralded as a cheap energy to underpin prosperity and reconstruction in a war-damaged world. But, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster knocked this once championed technology from favour. Ecological worries around carbon-based energy have set nuclear up for a rebrand, but then came Fukushima and new global anxieties. Where next for nuclear power, and how does its representation in film shape the public debate?
Panel discussion chaired by Quentin Cooper (Radio 4,The Material World), with Paul Dorfman (Founder of the Nuclear Consulting Group), Simon Roberts (Energy specialist in Arup’s Foresight, Innovation and Incubator group), and Kirsty Alexander (Head of Communications, Nuclear Industry Association)
£8 / £6 Conc.
For tickets and full details click here
London Region CND Public Meeting
Fukushima: Health and Community Effects
8:00pm, 3rd July
Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, London
Fukushima: Health and Community Effects with Dr. Ian Fairlie, an independent consultant on radioactivity in the environment, as well as a speaker from Japanese Against Nuclear.
Followed by questions and discussion.
Meeting takes place in the Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square WC1. (Near Holborn tube station.)
No charge for attendance. Everybody welcome.
Note that these public meetings are preceded, from 7-8pm in the same room, by a London Region CND Council Meeting which people coming for the public meeting can also attend, if they wish.
Independence from America
5:00pm, 4th July
Menwith Hill, Yorkshire
Join activists at Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases' annual 'Independence from America' event at Menwith Hill spy base in Yorkshire.
Speakers include:
Salma Yaqoob, Chair of Birmingham Stop the War Coalition & spokesperson for Birmingham Central Mosque
Andy Worthington, journalist & author of The Guantanamo Files
Martin Wainwright, recently retired Northern Editor of the Guardian
Entertainment from poets and singers
For more information, see the CAAB website
Trident Ploughshares International Disarmament Camp
AWE Burghfield
26th August - 7th September 2013
The Government have begun preparations for the replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Without a debate in Parliament, and in the context of savage spending cuts on public services, the Government has committed to spending up to £100 billion on an illegal weapon of mass destruction that even senior military officers have described as 'useless'.
The nuclear warheads are designed, assembled and maintained at two sites not far outside Reading – AWE Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield. It is here that people opposed to the continued existence of Trident will gather for two weeks of non-violent disarmament actions. All are welcome as long as you adhere to our non-violence guidelines.
There will be skill-sharing sessions on action planning and practice, how to run legal support, how to facilitate effectively and make decisions by consensus and using spokes-councils, radical music and song and much more. On the 2nd September, European anti-militarist groups will join us to share their experiences and also take part in a joint international action of resistance.
Come prepared with your own tent, sleeping bag, warm clothes and raingear. Vegan meals and hot drinks will be available throughout the camp. A donation of £5 per day is requested to cover food and costs.
A full briefing pack is available here. For further information check the Trident Ploughshares website.
For further queries about the camp and to register to come along, please contact Trident Ploughshares via phone on 0845 4588 362 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Big Blockade of AWE Burghfield
Monday 2nd September 2013
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Burghfield is the place where Britain's nuclear warheads are assembled and from where the nuclear convoys take them up to Scotland to put on the Trident submarines. AWE Burghfield (like AWE
Aldermaston) is now in the process of building facilities for a new generation of nuclear weapons. Trident already endangers us all, encourages proliferation and undermines international law. We don't want new nukes. We want disarmament now.
Please come and join in the blockade. You can sit, lie down, lock-on or provide support for the blockaders. We can put you in contact with your nearest group for help with nonviolence training, transport and support. Please join the blockade that will start at 7am and continue for as long as possible.
We will organise pickups from police stations and a venue where we can all meet afterwards to share our experiences and eat good food together. Please register with us so we get an idea of numbers to provide adequate food and accommodation.
For more information on the blockade please phone 0845 4588 362 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Full details available here
Wales Day of Action at AWE Burghfield
3rd October
Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Burghfield is responsible for the complex final assembly and maintenance of Trident nuclear warheads and their decommissioning. Nuclear warhead and nuclear materials convoys often depart from Burghfield when moving nuclear warheads between AWE and Coulport in Scotland for storage and servicing.
Plans are underway to update the existing Burghfield facilities to include the final assembly of nuclear warheads required for Trident or its replacement and the maintenance and the disassembling of nuclear warheads when they are taken out of service. The current overall cost of approved site developments at AWE stands at £2 billion and is expected to continue until at least 2015. For more info: http://cnduk.org/campaigns/no-to-trident/aldermaston
Running at least to the next election in 2015, Action AWE is inviting people from around Britain and beyond to come to Berkshire and "take creative, disruptive, disobedient, fun and exciting action against the AWE at Aldermaston and Burghfield, and show opposition to the making of warheads and replacement of Trident".
Please consider bringing a group along to blockade/support. A bus load or a car load would be most excellent - the more the merrier!
For more information or to express an interest in attending, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .