by David Mackenzie
Scrap Trident Coalition
The decision to engage in mass popular protest against Trident over the weekend of 13th to 15th April did not come from some bureaucratic NGO “strategy” meeting. It has arisen from a particular context and particular events.
Whatever your approach to the 2014 question the very fact that the vote is happening has begun to prompt more and more Scots to ask the big question: what do I want the place, the community, the nation I live in to be like? As they ponder this, the 2014 conversation is less and less about traditional identities and more and more about values. You see this in the talk around a constitution in which values may one day be specific, not just held to be self-evident but actually written down.
Oddly, Angus Robertson MP, by driving the successful campaign to switch SNP policy on NATO, can take some of the credit for jolting the peace movement in Scotland into a state of high alert. On the issue nuclear weapons there had been increasing concern that while the SNP continued to make regular anti-Trident statements their failure to take on Westminster on the issue of the system’s illegality under international humanitarian law led to doubt about their ability to stick to their stance when the independence negotiations got serious. The NATO volte-face set these concerns on fire. How serious could you be about nukes if you want to willingly join a nuclear armed alliance? Any remaining wisps of an illusion that the leaders of the independence movement would carry us to a peaceful nirvana while we folded our arms were dissipated.
The diverse No To Nato Scotland Coalition that formed round this livid concern very naturally morphed into a group determined to put the Trident question at the very heart of the 2014 debate. Hence the Scrap Trident Coalition. It was given a huge boost by the energetic Radical Independence Conference and its decision to have Trident at the centre of its work for the coming year.
The rationale is simple. We cannot leave this to the politicians. Sticking to a timely Trident rejection position is a highly confrontational stance which will put us up against very powerful interests. Scottish political leaders who want Trident scrapped will be under huge and varied pressure to wobble from their principles. Delays, compromising and shady backroom deals are very possible. They will need courage to face the likely threats and intimidation. They will need the encouragement and backing of people who will make popular Scottish rejection on these hideous weapons visible. The Scrap Trident April weekend of protest is a first step.
We are paying around £2 billion per annum to keep the current system going. Many millions have already been spent in upgrades at Aldermaston towards Son of Trident and Westminster is ready to sign off in excess of £35 billion for the new boats and related facilities. At a time when the Coalition is using the on-going financial crisis as a god-given opportunity to dismantle welfare provision strip by strip, Trident grows more and more obviously grotesque. There are the opportunity costs – the wholesome and essential things we could do with these billions. But there is also the deeper connection – Trident as the iconic representation of all the hatefulness that goes into austerity programmes, the aggressive flaunting of wealth and privilege in the face of poverty, the callous bureaucratic mistreatment of people with disabilities, the abject failure to invest in a sustainable future. To all those directly affected or saddened by all this, Trident is a gratuitous insult, a visible reminder that they do not matter.
How we respond to the Trident challenge is not just about Scotland or just about getting something horrible out of our country. It is something we can do for the world. The removal of Trident from Scotland will have the knock-on bonus of disabling the UK’s nuclear weapon system for lack of a suitable location, plus the hope that the nuclear disarmament of Britain will kick-start the stalled engine of global abolition.
For the last two years peace activists have been unsuccessfully urging the Scottish Ministers to base their stance on the fact that, as an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction actively deployed, Trident is illegal under international humanitarian law. But it is that argument and the ethical case that underpins it which provides the basis both for the essential confrontation and the moral courage to take it on.
The weekend will begin with a national demonstration in Glasgow on April 13th followed by a mass peaceful blockade of the Trident base at Faslane on Monday 15th. We will be marching through Glasgow as a reminder that these weapons keep our cities under constant threat of a nuclear accident. On Monday we will solidify our message by taking non-violent direct action to shut down the Faslane naval base, where the daily business is preparing for nuclear war.
There is scope for everyone to take part.