TRIDENT PLOUGHSHARES

PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release.

TRIDENT IS THE ONLY CUT WORTH MAKING.

On Monday 1st November 2010, from 6am, local and national anti-nuclear campaigners will be gathering at Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth to non-violently and peacefully attempt to impede the on-going work related to the Trident nuclear weapons system. This action has been organised by the Plymouth-based TP group, The Tamarians, and is being supported by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and a number of other local and national environmental groups.

Tamarians member John Robb said “The Cold War is over and we now face no foreseeable nuclear threat. It is insane that people up and down the country are at risk of losing their homes and their jobs due to spending cuts, but something like £80 billion is to be spent on an obscene weapon that can never be used.”

Plymouth University student, Meredith Fisk said “It is terrible that at a time when students are being forced to front more money and have their funding cut, that the government are intent on spending billions on weapons of mass destruction.”

Trident Ploughshares argue that as Trident is used by the UK government to ‘project force into the World’, this constitutes a real and on-going threat to other nations. Trident Ploughshares insist that the continuous deployment of armed Trident submarines is an on-going criminal act. They also say that the UK government’s stated policy of Trident Replacement runs contrary to its obligations under the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.

Trident Ploughshares founder Angie Zelter said “Nuclear weapons distort the moral fabric of our society and undermine our humanity. With our world facing massive ecological crises caused by corporate power abuse backed by military might, we need to actively promote a culture of peace not war. So please come to Devonport on the 1st of November, join the blockade, and start dismantling the war machine. Non-violent and sustained people power will transform our world.”

Campaigners point to a recent report by CND that exposes the myth that Trident creates jobs. It finds that Trident costs more jobs than it creates. Research by another local group has found evidence suggesting the incidences of cancer in people living close to the Dockyard are massively higher than the national average.
Trident is not good for the nation, and certainly not good for the people of Plymouth, which is gaining a name as the ‘Sellafield of the South West’.

Trident Ploughshares are not alone in believing that the expertise of the workforce in Devonport makes Plymouth ideally placed to become a centre of excellence in renewable and sustainable technologies of the future that would provide stable, secure and expanding work opportunities. This would be a huge improvement over the current situation where an ever-dwindling number is employed in the genocidal technologies of the past, facing uncertain job prospects, and subject to the whims of political change.

Contacts - John Robb -07840129247. Press queries – 07969858214.

Photos available as blockade commences from  http://plymouthtamarians.wordpress.com/

END.

Notes.

CND Report, Trident Costs Jobs –  http://www.cnduk.org/images/stories/briefings/trident/trident-jobs-ukeconomy.pdf

For further info about issues surrounding Trident refit work at Devonport, contact Ian Avent of CANSAR, 07799337433, or email  avent362@btinternet.com

Blockade Briefing Pack –  http://tridentploughshares.org/article1608
Trident Ploughshares – http@//tridentploughshares.org
Tamarians -  http://plymouthtamarians.wordpress.com/
CND –  http://www.cnduk.org

ICM Poll showing that more than half respondents favour nuclear disarmament –
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/13/icm-poll-nuclear-weapons

Article VI of the NPT, ratified by the UK, stipulates –
“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and international control.”

NPT background –  http://reachingcriticalwill.org/

For further info on the international campaigns for the NPT Review Treaty to commit to negotiations towards a Nuclear Weapons Convention, see  http://www.icanw.org