Kate Hudson's Blog

This is a guest posting by Ben Soffa, CND Press Officer, part of CND's delegation to the NPT in New York:

Preparing for the CND delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, we've been reading all the briefings, filling in the forms and reviewing the timetables of all the events in and around the NPT. So having arrived on Friday afternoon we really benefited from coming almost straight into the huge opening rally of the pre-NPT conference organised by an international coalition of campaign groups, CND included. We were reminded there of the shocking personal testimony of Hibaksha - survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's all too easy to get caught up in the process - who's saying what, what steps could take us towards a nuclear-free world and the like, but the terrible human and environmental impact of nuclear weapons use is the real reason we're here. Hearing the simply told experiences of Hibaksha - how young children, now old men, had to cremate their relatives or leave their parents trapped as the fire-storm approached is the most powerful argument for why the possibility of nuclear war must be prevented.

This is not some diplomatic game, and whatever the statements we hear over the coming days it's vital we remember that the threat from nuclear weapons is very real today, as it has been every day since long before the enactment of the NPT 40 years ago this year. Victims of nuclear weapons use, and of nuclear testing, are still suffering and dying to this day. As the Japanese survivors say, our message to the NPT must be "No more Hiroshimas, No more Nagasakis, No more Hibaksha!"

 

Getting beyond the hype of the leaders' debates, local hustings offer a snapshot of on-the-ground views. They also show that while some people may be glued to the TV, and others who conduct their political lives on a virtual basis, there are many who go out to public meetings and engage in the debates directly.

In Manchester Withington - where the LibDems overturned a big Labour majority in 2005 - hundreds of locals quizzed all seven candidates on a range of issues. Most interestingly for us, Labour hopeful Lucy Powell broke with Labour policy on Trident, saying she would vote to scrap it. She also added - I don't know on what basis - that she ‘would not be surprised' if Labour scrapped the replacement after a spending review in the next parliament if they were returned to power. Let's hope she's right.

Sitting MP John Leech, whose party rejects Trident replacement and wants a review of nuclear options, pointed out that Labour would clearly replace it, irrespective of Ms Powell's views.  Nevertheless, Lucy Powell's position underscores a trend apparent in CND's online lobbying. Currently 126 Labour candidates are very sensibly going against party policy and saying they would not vote for Trident replacement.

Meanwhile in Barrow, where Trident subs are built and the workforce is keen for the replacement work, the story is rather different. Candidates were asked by local paper North-West Evening Mail ‘Is the Trident replacement a bargaining chip for forming a coalition in the event of a hung parliament?'

The LibDem candidate managed to answer the question without mentioning Trident at all, which is some feat - but one can guess why. The Conservative said no - there was total commitment to maintaining the nuclear ‘deterrent'. But Labour, defending the seat, was most gung ho on the issue, saying that renewing Trident is non-negotiable. In fact, I think he is getting a bit ahead of himself, because numerous government statements make it clear that the decision can be reversed in the years ahead. He also attacked the Tories for being softies on nukes, as apparently last week Ken Clarke expressed interest in the kinds of alternatives to subs being raised by the LibDems. 

What is now abundantly clear is that candidates do not just follow party policy. Clearly they may well be motivated to divert from party policy on the basis of their conscience and good sense - presumably this motivates much of the anti-Trident sentiment. But clearly electoral expediency has its place too. This is very sharply demonstrated on a related issue: in Copeland, the constituency that includes Sellafield nuclear power plant, the LibDem candidate has controversially broken with his party's anti-nuclear policy to back nuclear new build there. I'm afraid one can only assume he is motivated by the ballot box, rather than some damascene conversion to the benefits of nuclear power.

‘A hung parliament is inevitable' says Respect leader Salma Yaqoob, in launching the party's manifesto. But the question we are all asking is, what will be the balance of forces? Speculations change from day to day. Responding to recent poll results suggesting that Labour would come first by a slim margin of three seats, Respect MP George Galloway promised that, if elected, Respect MPs - who could potentially total three - would ‘not bring down a Labour government, even in coalition with the Liberal Democrats'. He also made the parameters totally clear: ‘We will never support the Tories and, despite everything Labour has done wrong, they are preferable to the Tories'.  

Respect has great policy on war and nuclear weapons, as their manifesto makes absolutely clear:

• Bring the troops home from Afghanistan.
• Work in the international community to ensure that there is an end to the blockade of Gaza.
• Abandon the replacement of Trident.

But there are larger parties too, with abolitionist views on Trident, never mind the review-oriented LibDems. Could we have a situation where the SNP and Plaid Cymru hold the balance of power? What would they require in return for supporting a minority government? If the LibDems are in that position, what will they require? It is essential that clear concessions are made by the majority party, which is almost certain to be pro-nuclear Labour or Conservative. The most minimal condition should be that Trident replacement is in the forthcoming Defence Review. But other conditions should be required too: taking nuclear weapons off alert; ending continuous at-sea ‘deterrence'; abandoning Britain's nuclear first-use policy. And of course, there is always ‘Scrap Trident'.

 

 

US coverage of the election is now touching on Trident. In yesterday's Huffington Post (a 'liberal' news website often abbreviated to HuffPo), Azeem Ibrahim attacked the LibDems' position on Trident as 'outlandish and unrealistic'.

Ibrahim pours scorn on Clegg's criticism of spending on Trident, describing it as 'so out of touch with reality as to almost qualify as a gaffe'. The cost of Trident, Ibrahim argues, is 'not a great deal'. Reading between the lines, I suspect he would want it no matter how much it cost, but the reality is he's got his figures wrong.

Firstly, he says Trident currently costs £1.5 billion a year. Then he goes on to say that it would cost £21 billion to replace - or one billion a year over the next two decades. A mere snip, obviously. In fact, the figures show - based on Parliamentary Answers from Ministers, that annual spending on nuclear weapons has doubled between 2003 and 2010, and is likely to be around £3 billion a year by 2014. The MoD is spending a billion a year just on modernising the bomb factory at Aldermaston.

But the big hit is on the overall costs of the replacement. It is not just a question of building the subs - there are all the rising associated costs too, which mean that the figure of £76 billion used by CND over the past few years, is now a conservative estimate when compared to others - also based on government information, which rise to £100 billion or more.

So Azeem Ibrahim is sadly out of touch on the real facts and figures. I can understand a certain amount of confusion if he was any old person, but his by-line states that he is a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's International Security Program. Where do they get their information from??

Andrew Marr tried to run rings round Nick Clegg yesterday, on the subject of Trident. Questioning Clegg on his BBC TV show, Marr asked: ‘So if you're a CND supporter don't vote LibDem...?' Nick Clegg answered totally categorically: ‘Do not vote for the Liberal Democrats if you think what we're advocating is immediate unilateral disarmament. We're not.'

Let's be fair to Clegg: he has never claimed otherwise. Some people may have hoped otherwise, and others may have spun it otherwise, but that is not the same thing at all. I will now provide a public service and summarise what the LibDem position actually is, based on a reading of their recent report, authored by Ming Campbell and Nick Harvey, entitled Policy options for the future of the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons.

Firstly, they take the view that Trident must be included in the Strategic Defence Review following the general election. Both Labour and Conservatives rule out discussing Trident. They then go on to outline the options that should be considered by the Defence Review. They are:

• Explore the possibility of extending the life of the existing subs
• Question whether or not to maintain Continuous At-Sea Deterrence patrols
• Consider ‘de-alerting' the weapons
• That land-based and air-launched missiles appear to be unfeasible due to financial costs and likely opposition from local residents
• Consider modifying Astute submarines and fitting nuclear capable cruise missiles
• Consider a ‘virtual deterrent' - getting rid of the nukes but keeping the technology so they could be rapidly reintroduced
• Consider eliminating Britain's nuclear weapons capability altogether

On reading the options one is left with the view that the Astute/cruise option is the most favoured. But as I reported in an earlier blog, that is rendered very difficult and much more expensive by the US retiring its nuclear cruise in its recent US nuclear posture review. As yet I have not heard how Ming plans to deal with that obstacle.

Whatever Gordon Brown's rhetoric on the need for nuclear weapons, the reality is that Trident is now a major issue in the general election. Not suprisingly it surfaced again at the second leaders' debate, and Nick Clegg persisted with the issue, in spite of being exhorted by Gordon to 'get real'. In fact there is now some real discussion about the issue and emergent consideration of the options.

The BBC website today featured a piece in the Reality Check column (!) by Defence Correspondent Caroline Wyatt, entitled 'Trident: is there a cheap alternative?' Having considered nukes on cruise missiles, on ships, planes and so on, she tended to conclude that it couldn't really be done cheaper. She also appeared to favour its inclusion in the post-election Strategic Defence Review. In fact she concluded: 'arguments over Trident may well prove attractive to voters - not least those who ask if the UK should remain a nuclear-armed state at all.'  Before long there will be a sufficient groundswell of opinion that it just makes sense to include Trident in the SDR, that the government won't be able to say no.

The key issue is that getting rid of nukes altogether must be one of the options under consideration, not just other systems. Interestingly, a LibDem spokesperson on the post-debate news coverage last night referred to the so-called 'virtual' nuclear option, sometimes also termed the Japanese model. This is where you don't actually have nuclear weapons but you have the technology so you can just whip one up if 'necessary'. Unless the spokesperson was just showing off his knowledge, this would be  a further step on for the LibDems than nuclear cruise missiles.

Meanwhile today the totally sensible position - have no nuclear weapons whatsoever - was advanced by the SNP and Plaid Cymru, at a press conference in London, with the Green Party expressing agreement. This is what we really need to hear, and what we really need to make sure gets a full hearing in this election. Nuclear weapons are just not an option.

Military top brass are now lending their weight to the anti-Trident debate. In today's Times, four senior figures argue forcefully that Britain's nuclear weapons should be included in the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review. A key concern is the defence budget. Going ahead with Trident, they say, will have long-term consequences for the military, when there is already 'an estimated hole in the defence equipment budget of some £35 billion'.

Crucially, the generals recognise that things have changed since the decision to replace Trident in 2007, not least the Obama initiatives and the recent US-Russia nuclear reductions.  (If only Brown and Cameron had noticed too). They point to the growing international consensus against nuclear weapons and the identification of disarmament as a means of achieving greater security. A world without nuclear weapons, they say, 'would undoubtedly be a safer place, and while it remains a distant and challenging goal, opportunities to bring it closer should be given thorough consideration by any government'.

They conclude with a plea for a full and open debate on Trident replacement as part of a Strategic Defence Review, from which no alternatives are excluded, and in which military voices are heard.

No doubt some nuclear apologists will ague that generals are bound to say this because of historic rivalry between the army and the navy, where Trident falls on the navy side. Frankly that is a pathetic excuse of an attack on a totally serious argument. The issue is what actually provides for Britain's security and this must not be diminished.

The SNP has come up anti-nuclear trumps with its Manifesto launched today. Absolutely clear opposition to Trident and its replacement, based not only on the costs issue, but also on moral grounds. That is a welcome statement indeed. Also welcome is their reference to the groups with which they work on this issue and their commitment to continuing that process. 'We have been proud to stand alongside Scotland's faith groups, the STUC and community campaigners in opposition to Trident and its replacement and we will continue to do so'.

Detailed knowledge of the issue - clearly based on the unwanted location of nuclear weapons in Scottish waters - comes through clearly. Safeguarding jobs is often an argument used to defend retention of nuclear weapons. The SNP rightly challenges this head on in its manifesto. Referring to research conducted by the STUC and Scottish CND, they point out that the money spent maintaining the UK's nuclear weapons costs Scotland approximately 3,000 jobs.

Published earlier this year, the research shows that replacing Trident will destroy jobs in Scotland rather than create them. While supporters of Trident claim that 10,000 jobs will go if Trident is not replaced, the report by senior academics and trade unionists shows the contrary is true. According to the Ministry of Defence's own figures, cancellation of Trident would cost less than 1600 civilian jobs in Scotland. Of these 270 are at the Dounreay Naval Test Reactor which is scheduled to close in 2014 whether or not Trident is replaced.

On the other hand, the research shows: 'if Trident is replaced, far more jobs will be lost in Scotland. This is because the money for the new system will not come out of the defence budget but out of existing public expenditure or new tax. Either way, it will cost thousands of jobs in Scotland: up to 3,000 in essential services if it comes out of existing budgets - already under intense pressure because of the recession and the huge national debt'. So on these grounds alone it's hardly surprising that the overwhelming majority of Scots oppose Trident.

Sorry to say there is a disappintment today on LibDem nuclear policy. Ed Davey, party spokesperson on foreign policy, was on the BBC Daily Politics debate earlier on today, with Hague and Milband. When pressed to more fully explain LibDem nuclear policy, he confirmed that they did want Britain to have nuclear weapons.

They have consistently argued that they do not want a 'like-for-like' replacement for Trident - in other words, presumably not building four new subs, designed primarily for nuclear weapons use. There has been some confusion as to whether they have wanted to go for other nukes or abolish Britain's nukes altogether. This uncertainty has clearly reflected differences within the party about this issue, as has already been clear in these blogs over the past few days.

But Nick Clegg has made it clear in recent statements that they intend to have some form of nuclear weaponry, and again today Ed Davey has made it absolutely clear that the LibDems do favour an alternative form of replacement. But it is not clear what this might be. An air-launched system has generally been ruled out as being insufficiently secure. An alternative submarine system that has periodically been suggested is to put put nuclear warheads on submarine launched cruise missiles, carried on Astute class submarines, modified to carry the load.

The problem with this is that the recent US nuclear posture review is retiring their submarine launched nuclear cruise missiles. So there will be no easy option of getting missiles, and all the associated systems, off the shelf from the US, as we have done with Trident. So presumably we would have to make them ourselves. I can't see that saving any money. After all, cost was a big part of why we gave up making our own in 1960, fifty years ago this month, and bought into US systems - first Polaris and then Trident.

I think the LibDems need to go back to the drawing board on this one - or, to mix my metaphors, get off the fence and come down on the side of genuine nuclear disarmament.

Yes that may well sound like a tabloid headline, but in fact Cameron has clearly revealed the Tory reason for keeping and replacing Britain's nuclear weapons system. During the first leaders' election debate last week, David Cameron stated that 'we can't be certain of the future in China', when explaining why he thought Britain should retain nukes.

Although this is a shocking thing to blurt out, this is actually the subtext of the whole pro-nuclear argument, that the government and other nuclear supporters have been bandying about since the Defence White paper backed Trident replacement in 2006. The argument goes: 'we don't face any nuclear threats now, but we can't disarm because we face an uncertain future and who knows what threats we will face in thirty years time'.

The US has identified China as its chief strategic competitor, and has been rearranging its nuclear subs to the Pacific, strengthening its presence in central Asia and the Indian sub-continent, developing an east Asian version of missile defence, and selling missiles and other military kit to Taiwan, to boost its own military capacities vis a vis the emerging global superpower. Clearly some at the top in UK circles have also identified China as a potential future threat.

In reality, China has a relatively small nuclear arsenal, and its policies over the last decades indicate that it does not wish to get embroiled in a nuclear arms race and divert its economy from rapid development into a dead end project, the like of which bankrupted the Soviet Union.  Doubtless that is why China voted in the UN General Assembly a few years ago to back immediate negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban all nuclear weapons.

CND's response to the future threat argument is: yes the future is uncertain, therefore one should take steps designed to reduce threats and eliminate dangers. If we want to face nuclear threats in thirty years time, we can best achieve that by nuclear rearmament and stoking tensions leading to a new nuclear arms race. If we wish to avoid future nuclear threats then we should take serious steps to eradicate nuclear weapons, including Britain taking genuine steps to disarm itself. We need to help shape the future towards the outcome we wish to see, Mr Cameron, not the one we fear most.