Peace campaigners blockade Trident base

Hundreds of people from across the UK, France and as far away as New Zealand converged on Faslane Naval Base, homeport to Trident, at 7am on Monday, blocking all its gates and shutting down access, bringing traffic on all roads into the nuclear weapons base to a halt.

Students, pensioners, environmentalists and activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties laid down in the entrance to the base to demand that the UK disarm Trident, and instead, fund human needs - welfare, education, pensions, disability benefits, and green jobs - and let Scotland lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons.

The blockade was one of more than a hundred Global Day of Action on Military Spending protests calling for deep reductions in military spending and follows a demonstration on Saturday when thousands of protesters called for the government to Scrap Trident.

Among those blocking the entrance Sara Moon a Development Officer from Sheffield University said: “Sheffied University Student Union has a firm commitment to the belief that money should not be spent on funding the arms trade and supporting war but instead be spent on fundamental social goods such as education. It would take a fraction of the cost of the Trident nuclear programme to fund free education for all in the UK. At a time when the worst off in our communities have been stripped of their access to education we have to demand that public money is not wasted on something as unnecessary and devastating as Trident”

Pensioner Roy St Pierre from Lancashire said: " I've cycled to Scotland to say that nuclear weapons are morally abhorrent and also to support the Scottish people in making the scrapping of Trident a reality. An independent non-nuclear Scotland would be a beacon to the rest of the world”.

Veteran campaigner Caerphilly Labour councillor, Ray Davies, 83, who features in Ken Loach's new film Spirit of '45, and who has been arrested numerous times in peaceful protests against nuclear weapons also took part in the blockade.

Laurie Ross of Christchurch, a Grandmother for Peace whose father initiated the campaign which successfully made New Zealand a nuclear weapons free zone will join the blockaders at Faslane before going on to Edinburgh for a meeting of the international nuclear disarmament campaigning network Abolition 2000.

Disability Rights campaigner and WOW petition organiser Susan Archibald of Kelty in Fife taking part in the protest said: “I am really pleased that the Scrap Trident coalition is taking a stance to Defend Disability Rights and I hope other organisations and groups will join them. The money saved from scrapping Trident could cushion the blow for everyone affected by Welfare Reform. So much work is needed now in local communities as the most vulnerable people and their families are under attack by this Government.”

Brian Larkin is Coordinator of Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre at St John's Church