The following is a short video with highlights from the meeting:

Kate Hudson, Chair of CND introduced the meeting by describing how US plans for place Missile Defence sites in Central Europe have become a major international issue. Missile Defence is also a big campaigning issue in UK due to proposals to use Menwith Hill and Fylingdales in Yorkshire. Over the last year CND have been working hard to develop links with colleagues in the Czech Republic and Poland to co-ordinate knowledge, expertise and campaigning on this issue. She welcomed the contribution that Lubomir Zaoralek had made by his visit - speaking to MPs and the press. Kate then introduced the three British MPs who were speaking, all of who have strong track-records campaigning against US plans for Missile Defence.

discussed how the current US proposals had their roots in Regan’s Strategic Defence Initiative, with Bush embracing them in part due to the vast sums it would provide to those whose funding allowed him to gain power. He said that there are some in the US who could only define themselves politically by identifying an enemy - even if, as in this case, they had to invent an enemy to oppose. This was part of the Neocon project of Full Spectrum Dominance - dominating land, sea, air, space and information.

Referring to the investigations of leading US scientists Ted Postol and Richard Garwin he pointed to the significant doubts to whether the system could actually function - tests had included homing beacons in the target missiles, whereas in the real world, missiles have the opposite - decoys.

Peter Kilfoyle also said how amazed he was at how badly briefed Ministers are on the subject. He was also yet to see a Minister give a rationale for British involvement in this project. Of the two main countries identified by the US as threats, North Korea is being brought into the family of nations by diplomacy and Iran do not have anything like the rockets to threaten Europe or the US. Even if they did, he claimed that a threat only came from a combination of capability plus intent. Iran may be many things, but they are not suicidal, he added. It is absurd to spend hundreds of billions of dollars combating an enemy that isn’t defined.

Jon Trickett MP talked about the sinister nature of the bases being imposed on his county of Yorkshire, with no debate and no vote. There couldn’t be a debate as there is no narrative from the Government to defend making us a nuclear target. During the Trident debate MPs were told by ministers that the UK were not under threat of missile attack, therefore there is no rationale for placing these bases in the UK. This only leaves the argument that no minister could make - that they are putting UK interests second to those of the US.

He noted that Des Browne had said there were no plans to site interceptor missiles in the UK, he had heard such formulations before and added that we need to be very careful that this isn’t another instance of there being ‘no plans’ until the point it is announced that interceptor rockets will be sited here.

Jeremy Corbyn MP called for real parliamentary scrutiny of a decision that he said could have catastrophic effects for both the UK and Europe. Despite the Cold War having finished a long time ago we still have US nuclear weapons at Lakenheath and participating in programmes such as Missile Defence only gives and excuse to those in Russia who wish to re-arm. Developing such as system will result in a self-fulfilling prophecy as others seek to be able to overcome it, and in the 21st Century, we need to do better that that, he added.

Lubomir Zaoralek started by describing how the Czech Government first announced plans to host the US radar literally a couple of hours after narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence in Parliament, distracting attention from their troubles with the claim that it would be a ‘great honour’ to host the system. He describes the difficulty of getting real debate in the Chamber of Deputies and the measures the Government took to frustrate their efforts.

He stated that the huge and well financed public information campaign had however failed, with 70% of the public opposing the system. The Government is behaving totally undemocratically - having no regard for the people, parliament or the views of neighbouring countries. The leaders of six Social Democratic parties, including three heads of government had met in Prague last year in opposition to US plans.

There had in the last weeks been visits from two Americans, but with widely differing views of the programme - Philip Coyle, assistant Secretary of Defence under Clinton had addressed the ineffectiveness of the system and its technical shortcomings (in terms of no testing to overcome decoys put out by missiles) and suggested that over the next decade financing for Missile Defence may be run down.

General Obering, head of the Missile Defence Agency had during his visit called for an acceleration of negotiations - hoping to conclude them in a few months. He arrived with representatives of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon who wined and dined deputies before there had been any vote. It would be one thing to discuss contracts etc. after the decision was made, but this was totally inappropriate. He had no interest in discussing the nature of the threats faced by Europe and was much more ideologically driven.

Lubomir Zaoralek described how it was unimaginable to him that North Korea or Iran would attack European territory and could hardly believe they were going to devote the necessary resources to developing a large fleet of long range nuclear missiles. General Obering had discussed the National Intelligence Estimate that stated Iran did not have an active nuclear weapons programme, but stressed the Iranians were ready to resume one.

By hosting the radar the Czech Republic would no longer have the ability to influence who is their enemy in the future. Iran has asked what changed in their relationship, which had been very good in the past - the Government couldn’t provide them with any answer.

  As the system is claimed to be to defence neighbouring states, he felt, as a Social Democrat that discussions also must include them. That bilateral negotiations were taking place between the Czech Republic and the US destroys the concept of a common defence and security policy for Europe.

He noted that the main challenges facing Europe are of a non-military nature: terrorism, climate change etc. and priorities must be set - Missile Defence is an anachronism. Long range missiles were the major concern during the Cold War, but not nowadays. He added that the current non-proliferation regime is anachronistic, with the five early nuclear powers deploying a double standard - the US turning a blind eye to Israel and making a bilateral agreement with India.

Answering questions, he described the great ‘No to Bases’ movement that had developed in opposition to the plans and discussed how the Government were refusing calls for a referendum as they were clear they would be defeated. He concluded by stating that taking part in the US Missile Defence programme would not solve the Czech Republic’s security concerns, but would definitely destroy their relationship with Russia.