Kate Hudson's Blog

For over two decades, Michael Foot has been wrongly blamed for the defeat of the Labour Party in 1983. As one of CND's founders and a longstanding supporter, Michael Foot backed unilateral nuclear disarmament. Under his leadership, and at the time of the massive protests against the siting of US cruise missiles in Britain, Labour adopted a pro-disarmament policy. 

At the June 1983 general election, the Conservative Party was re-elected and the vote for Labour was reduced from 36.9% in 1979 to 28.3%. Needless to say, the media and the right wing of the Labour Party rushed to blame Foot's defence policy for the defeat. This myth was then used to justify pro-nuclear policies by the Labour leadership - and is still used today. In fact, when I have debated Trident replacement in Constituency Labour Party meetings over the past few years, the small minority of pro-Trident members present have wheeled out this tired old argument to justify wasting £76 billion of tax payers' money on a new generation of nuclear weapons.

But this argument was wrong then and it is wrong now. There were clear majorities in public opinion polls against cruise, Trident and nuclear bases in Britain. The key factor in the Labour defeat was the split of the Social Democratic Party from Labour, which succeeded in massively cutting the Labour vote and splitting opposition to the Tories. Although the Conservative vote fell, and they were outpolled by Labour and the SDP combined, they won the election. This was clearly not an endorsement of Margaret Thatcher's nuclear policy.

Today polls show that a majority opposes Trident, from across the political spectrum. Senior military figures describe Trident as militarily useless. Money needs to be saved and common sense says it shouldn't be spent on nuclear weapons which only increase the danger of nuclear proliferation and do nothing to meet the security threats that we face. The reality is, nuclear disarmament is a vote winner, not a vote loser. To Michael Foot - our respect and great thanks to a man of principle.

The nannying of Tony Blair is reaching ridiculous proportions.  When he goes before the Iraq Inquiry on Friday, attempts are afoot to prevent his delicate ears  being sulied by the sounds of popular protest. CND and the Stop the War Coalition have planned a day-long peaceful vigil outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre but we have now been told - just three days before the event - that we are not allowed to gather on the grass outside. This is where previous protests have taken place during the Inquiry.

We have negotiated with the police over many days and they had assured us that they were happy for us to protest directly outside the centre. But now we have been told that all access will be denied. Of all the silly excuses possible, we have now been told that as the QEII centre is 'private land', it is the centre which has the right to deny access. Needless to say, this isn't the full picture. The facility is actually operated by a publicly-owned Government Executive Agency under the authority of the Department of Communities and Local Government. This is clearly a political decision.

It is disgraceful that the right to peaceful protest is being denied so blatantly. As the police say they have no security objections to our vigil being held outside the Inquiry, we can only assume that this is an attempt to protect Tony Blair from the overwhelming anti-war sentiment that exists in this country. It is only proper that he should see and hear those of us who have been proved right in our opposition to his war, particularly the many family members of those he sent to die. Come and join us on Friday: insist on our democratic right to peaceful protest - and let Blair know what you think of his war crimes.

Shaker Aamer is a victim of George Bush's criminal 'war on terror'. He remains imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, despite being cleared for release in 2007. It is now eight years since the first prisoners were taken to the base, and Shaker - a British resident - was one of the earliest detainees.

Shaker himself has suffered torture and abuse since his capture in January 2002. But the suffering inflicted on Shaker has had much wider consequences. His family - his British wife and four young children - have had a terrible time and his wife has been very ill as a result. His entire family are themselves innocent victims of the 'war on terror'.

In fact, Shaker was one of the five Guantanamo detainees for whom Foreign Secretary David Miliband sought release in 2006. The other four have now been released but the US is holding back on Shaker. The question is, why is there a hold up? The most likely reason is that he is being further punished for speaking up on behalf of the prisoners in Guantanamo, seeking treatment in line with the Geneva Conventions.

Today I went with other campaigners to Downing Street, together with Johina Aamer, Shaker's twelve year old daughter. The message she left for Mr Brown was simple: she wants her father to come home. Shaker Aamer has got to be released. There is no evidence that he has committed any crime. The US has to let him go. They have to end the suffering they are inflicting on him and his family. I hope our government will redouble its efforts to secure his release. His family must be reunited.

 

Over twenty years ago, Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear weapons programme. As a result, he served 18 years in prison. 11 of them were in solitary confinement. Yesterday he was rearrested by Jerusalem police. 

What great sin had Mordechai committed, to deserve rearrest? He had met his Norwegian woman friend at a hotel in east Jersualem, for a personal visit. As a result he was charged with violating his parole by speaking to a foreign national and ordered to be kept under house arrest for two days.

Mordechai, who is now 59, had been a technician at Dimona, Israel's secret nuclear site, and he was jailed in 1986 for giving details of Israel's nuclear weapons programme to The Sunday Times. He was captured by Israeli secret service agents in Rome.

Since he was released from prison in 2004, he has been kept under surveillance by internal security forces and forbidden to leave the country or meet foreigners.

Israeli authorities claim that Mordechai may have further secret information to reveal, hence the continuing persecution even after he has served his time. Frankly,  the idea that there is some additional secret that he has held onto since 1986 and didn't disclose at the time, is ludicrous. Presumably any information he did have at the time would be massively out of date by now anyway. 

The reality is that the Israeli authorities want to continue punishing him, and are doing their best to prevent any semblance of normal life or humanity for Mordechai. Interfering in his personal relationships is a stark example of this. International pressure must now be applied to ensure that Mordechai is allowed to live the rest of his life in peace. 

What a rehash of tedious old rubbish from the 1980s.  It is a shame that politicians and journalists haven't got anything better to do than restate baseless allegations. If people want to attack Baroness Ashton, better by far to criticise something she has actually done, rather than make up a fantasy crime. No evidence has ever been produced to show that CND received Soviet funding; not surprising because there was no funding. CND has always been an independent, politically non-aligned campaign, funded by its members and supporters.

 Sadly, these attacks are nothing new, and CND - because it campaigns to change government policy on nuclear weapons - has had more than its fair share of harassment, including from government. This was particularly marked during the 1980s when CND was the chief  articulator of opposition to the siting of US cruise missiles in the UK. During 1981 this was more or less confined to encouraging the media to limit CND's access and coverage. But as public support for CND increased, the government increased its efforts, focusing on accusations of Soviet funding. Bruce Kent, who was then General Secretary, offered a prize of £100 to anyone who could produce evidence of Soviet funding, but the prize was unclaimed.

That didn't stop the wild accusations. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was funding the European peace movement to the tune of £100 million a year. 'If they were', said Bruce Kent, 'it was certainly not getting to our grotty little office in Finsbury Park.' From the beginning of 1983, Michael Heseltine was Tory Defence Secretary and established DS19, a team within the MoD, to organise the campaign against CND. Heseltine's main angle was that CND's aim was the advancement of communism, rather than bothering to engage with our arguments.

Attention also came from MI5, and when the whistleblower Cathy Massiter left the Service, we discovered that Harry Newton, a volunteer who used to stuff envelopes, was actually a government informer. A number of attacks came through an organisation called the Coalition for Peace through Security, which disrupted events, sent a spy into CND office and tried to link Bruce Kent with the IRA. The Coalition opted for slogans like 'Disarmament equals surrender', and was endorsed by leading Conservative politicians.

If people want to support nuclear weapons, it is better by far that they have an honest debate with us, in which they put forward the military and political case for keeping them. To attempt to discredit our arguments by attacking us on the basis of lies and baseless allegations is nothing but cowardice and dishonesty.

How do I feel about Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize, a radio presenter asked me this afternoon. Well I think the answer is 'mixed feelings'.  There is no doubt that the global mood has changed under the Obama Presidency. The nightmare of the Bush years - with his 'shoot first, ask questions later, if at all' mentality - is over. Dialogue and diplomacy are up the agenda, and war and nuclear weapons are down. But they are not yet out.

The citation from the Nobel Committee emphasises Obama's vision and hope, his work to create a new climate in international politics. All that is true, and on that basis he deserves the prize. But of course what we want to see is this vision coming to fruition with concrete outcomes. We want to see progress towards nuclear abolition which goes beyond the bilateral cuts - welcome as they are.

And we want to see an end to the war in Afghanistan. More deaths of innocent civilians are not the answer to complex regional problems. War hasn't solved over them over the centuries and it is clearly not going to solve them now.

 So along with everyone else who welcomes his vision of a different and better world, I urge President Obama to live up to the Nobel ideals, to make his vision a reality.

Gordon Brown's announcement that he is likely to cut the number of submarines in the Trident replacement nuclear weapons system is welcome.

But the cuts cannot stop here. Opinion polls are consistently showing that a majority of the public oppose Trident replacement. People rightly question spending in excess of £76 billion on a system that retired generals describe as militarily useless and which does nothing to protect against current threats to our security. Why cut public services when you can cut useless weapons of mass destruction?

But cost is not the only issue: the reality is that if the nuclear weapons states maintain and rearm their nuclear weapons, this will encourage other states to acquire nuclear weapons. By failing to disarm, we encourage proliferation and put ourselves - and the whole world - at greater risk. The government has understood this, and has taken a step in the right direction. But despite all this it is still maintaining that Britain 'needs' nuclear weapons! This is clearly nonsense and the government needs to get up a bit of courage and scrap the lot.

Great news! Bush's confrontational plans to put missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic have been scrapped by Barack Obama. This is highly significant. The destabilising plans were fiercely opposed by majorities in both those countries - they now have much cause for celebration as their countries have been taken off the front line in future US wars. I would like to congratulate and pay tribute to the work of the anti-base campaigns in both countries - they have done a remarkable job in articulating and fighting for their real national interests: peace and cooperation rather than militarisation and confrontation. 

The plans were also strongly opposed by Russia which was considering its own arms build-up in response, creating a 'new Cold War' in Europe. The way is now open for major advances in related areas, such as the cuts to nuclear warhead numbers that President Obama wishes to see. Next week all eyes will be on Obama and Medvedev when they meet at the UN. We need to see what concrete difference this policy change will make.

But what of missile defence in Britain? What about the missile defence bases at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in Yorkshire? Our government should build on President Obama's example of cancelling unnecessary and costly weapons programmes, and end both participation in missile defence and the £76bn Trident replacement. Both missile defence and new nuclear weapons systems actually help bring about the dangers they are supposed to prevent.

Time to close the bases, Gordon - you can save money and help make the world a safer place.

As TUC Congress meets this week, public spending will be high on the agenda. And as trade union leaders speak with Gordon Brown about the state of the economy, it's likely that spending on nuclear weapons will come up. A new opinion poll published last week shows 58% of the public opposed to spending money on Trident nuclear weapons. As the likely bill for replacing the current system comes in at around £76 billion and rising, it's hardly surprising. And that's on top of maintaining the existing system. The same poll showed that 84% want spending on education to increase in real terms every year. So it's not that tax payers are against government spending - it's just that we want our money spent on things that are going to be of use to us.

Leading politicians from all sides have been calling the cost of Trident into question and asking if such spending can be justified in the current economic crisis. Along with new aircraft carriers Trident replacement is increasingly identified as a ‘big ticket' item that we can do without.

It is indeed a massive waste of money, and it would be better by far to spend it on public services, health, education, developing sustainable energies - the list of essentials seems almost endless. But of course cost is not the only reason to scrap nuclear weapons. There is a very strong case that if nuclear weapons states continue to maintain their arsenals - and upgrade them - this will encourage nuclear proliferation by other countries. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pointed out, while some powerful countries say they need nuclear weapons for their own security, other countries will come to the same conclusion. That seems pretty logical.

Whichever way you look at it, the arguments for getting rid of Britain's nuclear weapons are compelling. Recently, senior retired military figures have said they are militarily useless, and of course they are irrelevant in the face of our major security threats - climate change and terrorism.

So we can't afford them, they're militarily useless and they don't meet our security needs. Sounds like a worthwhile spending cut, Gordon.

We are discussing these issues at our CND fringe meeting at TUC:

‘Trident - the real financial scandal: time for nuclear disarmament'

Tuesday 15^th September

12.45 Room 11a, BT Convention Centre, Liverpool

Everyone is welcome - come along and join the discussion

Great news: the government is delaying the decision on the next stage of Trident replacement. It has decided to wait until after the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which takes place in May of next year. The Conference is likely to have the most serious international discussion on nuclear disarmament for decades. Real progress is possible and the government's delay decision makes a positive contribution to the Conference's prospects.

Previously, the Government planned to move on to the next stage of the replacement process during the Parliamentary recess in September. Not surprisingly this raised serious objections about transparency and accountability from across the political spectrum. At the same time we  have heard major concerns about the costs of Trident replacement, and a recent poll has shown a majority of the population opposing it.

For the past couple of years the government has had a contradictory position on nuclear weapons. On the one hand, under Brown's leadership, wanting to play a leading role in multilateral disarmament initiatives, and on the other continuing to pursue rearmament via Trident replacement. This was not going to build confidence amongst the non-nuclear weapons states in the sincerity of Britain's disarmament intentions.

But this new decision now makes the government's position consistent. The replacement is delayed pending the international talks. What is needed now is a serious effort to advance the multilateral process. Bilateral reductions between the US and Russia are a very good first step, but drawing all other nuclear weapons states into the disarmament process must follow swiftly behind. This is the only credible and lasting way to defeat proliferation.