Green MSPs and MEP to join anti-WMD protest at Faslane

Green MSPs and Green MEP Caroline Lucas will join thousands of peace campaigners G8 protestors in a demonstration at the Faslane nuclear base today, Monday 4th July. Demonstrators aim to blockade the base for the day in protest at weapons of mass destruction and the absurd sums spent by G8 countries on war and weaponry whilst half the world starves.

Demonstrations will take place throughout the day at the nuclear base.

Green MSP Chris Ballance, speaker on Peace and Nuclear issues for the Greens, said: "Following the historic demonstrations in Edinburgh and across the world at the weekend, that spirit of overwhelming demand for change will now focus on militarism, the arms trade and our very own WMD on the Clyde. A shameful £48 per second is spent on the UK's nuclear weapons. At a time when the clamour for action on poverty and climate change is resonating louder than ever before, the promotion of the global arms trade and nuclear weaponry by G8 nations must be stopped.

"The hypocrisy is quite breathtaking - on the one hand Blair and Bush claim moral rights to invade other countries to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, yet they are quite happy to spend billions of pounds on their own supply of them.

"They are illegal under international law and waste taxpayers money that would be better spent on tackling poverty, creating a sustainable economy and addressing the very real and present dangers faced by humanity - such as climate change."

"It is the intention of western states to hold onto and build even more nuclear weapons, and it is this that is spurring on nations around the world to do the same. We must honour our international treaty obligations and get rid of Trident now."

Caroline Lucas Green Party MEP for South-East England, who is also a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's national council and Co-President of the European Parliament's cross-party Peace Initiatives group, said she would keep attending peaceful demonstrations - and risking arrest for non-violent direct action - until the UK scrapped its nuclear arsenal.

"Nuclear weapons have been responsible for the indiscriminate deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians worldwide, and their use has been declared unlawful by the international Court of Justice in The Hague," she said.

"The risk of nuclear weapons use - by accident, design or miscalculation - is increasing due to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new States, the possibility of non-State access to nuclear weapons and bomb-building materials, and the expanded nuclear weapons use doctrines of the nuclear weapon states.

"The G8 leaders meeting in Scotland cannot hope to persuade states such as Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions whilst they maintain their own nuclear arsenals: and I will keep protesting about Trident until it has been scrapped."

Dr Lucas, who is in Scotland to take part in the 'Alternative G8 Summit', added: "If G8 leaders are serious about tackling hardship in the developing world, they must take seriously the link between nuclear weapons, militarism and poverty."

The G8 countries account for 80% of the world's arms trade, supplying weapons to countries all over the world and to states who use them for oppression in developing countries. The G8 countries also own most of the world's Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Comments

[Llewellyn]

According to today's Morning Star, the Green Party supported 4 Scottish Socialist Party MSPs being banned from the Parliament for a demonstration against the ban on a Gleneagles demonstration

[hairpinandarrow]

Dr Lucas should have stopped while she was accurate (above) and put a period right after the word ambitions: "The G8 leaders meeting in Scotland cannot hope to persuade states such as Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions." She gets off-track after that point.