In an early show of opposition to Trident replacement, a number of newly-elected MP from different parties will join CND Chair Kate Hudson at Downing Street tomorrow to call for action on nuclear disarmament from the new government.The letter has been produced in response to the outcomes of the recent nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the UN and will ask the government to outline how it will make progress on reaching the objectives of the agreement, including when and by how much the UK will further reduce its warhead stockpile and how it will reduce the circumstances in which we may use nuclear weapons.
The conference’s final agreement calls on the nuclear weapon states to
‘undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons’
‘accelerate concrete progress on the steps leading to nuclear disarmament’ and to
‘rapidly move towards an overall reduction in the global stockpile of nuclear weapons [and] further diminish the role and significance of nuclear weapons in all military and security concepts, doctrines and policies’.
MPs joining Kate Hudson include the Liberal Democrats’ Julian Huppert, the SNP’s Eilidh Whiteford and the Green Party’s first MP Caroline Lucas. The initiative is supported by newly elected Labour MP John Cryer.
Also handing in the letter will be CND Vice President Rebecca Johnson, who was a Senior Advisor to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), chaired by Dr Hans Blix (2004-2006) and General Sir Hugh Beach.
The letter hand in takes place at 4pm at Downing Street, following Prime Ministers Questions.
CND Chair Kate Hudson said: “The support we’ve received from newly-elected MPs is a reflection of the strong demand for action from the new government on nuclear disarmament. This was demonstrated in the general election, where discussion of nuclear weapons had a higher profile than in any election for decades.
The government has signed up to accelerated progress towards nuclear disarmament, yet has declared its commitment to a new nuclear weapon system that will keep Britain nuclear-armed until the 2050s. Given that we signed the NPT forty years ago, the commitment to another forty years of nuclear weapons does not sound like an acceleration. The government needs to outline how it will achieve this – a good first step is to include Trident in the Strategic Defence Review, with the option of No Trident Replacement firmly on the table.”
The text of the letter reads:
We welcome the recent agreement at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference as a further step towards our shared goal of the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
The conference’s final agreement calls on the nuclear weapon states to ‘undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons’. We wish to highlight in particular the resolution that calls on the nuclear weapon states to ‘accelerate concrete progress on the steps leading to nuclear disarmament’ and to ‘rapidly move towards an overall reduction in the global stockpile of nuclear weapons [and] further diminish the role and significance of nuclear weapons in all military and security concepts, doctrines and policies’.
The US and Russia had prepared the ground for a constructive outcome with their new START treaty and initiatives including the declassification of warhead stockpiles by both the US and the UK at the conference were important confidence-building measures. The commitment to a 2012 conference to make progress on a WMD-free Middle East is a significant breakthrough and as a supporter of that position it is incumbent upon the UK government to act in an even-handed manner toward all Middle East states in its efforts to achieve this goal.
In light of these positive developments the way forward for the UK is clear. As a very minimum our government must now outline how it will make progress on reaching the objectives of the agreement, namely when and by how much we will further reduce our warhead stockpile and how we will reduce the circumstances in which we may use nuclear weapons.
Our goal must be the total disarmament of all our nuclear weapons and we must urgently begin preparing for a non-nuclear defence and security strategy. The government must ensure the forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review includes Trident and considers the non-nuclear option. We also urge the government to take concrete steps to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons, including a Nuclear Weapons Convention, to ban nuclear weapons in the same way that chemical and biological weapons have been banned.
We look forward to your response.