Global Day of Action on Military Spending

Pat Gaffney of Pax Christi, Bruce Kent, Vice President & member Peter McNamara outside Kings Cross station

Health & Education were top of the list in a ballot taken today in Central London for the Global Day of Action on Military Spending.

Members of Pax Christi, part of the national GDAMS planning group, held a ballot at Kings Cross Station earlier today inviting passers-by to 'Vote for a Safer World'. Their choices: Education & Healthcare; Tackling Climate Change; International cooperation and Arms and Military intervention.

This is the fifth year that the Global Day of Action on Military Spending has been marked in the UK. At the weekend events were held in Edinburgh and Huddersfield and today events that we know of took place in Leeds, Dorchester, Hebden Bridge, Keighley, Oxford, Abingdon, Kingston, Coventry, Liverpool and London.

The 2016 UK Government budget for the military stands at £46 billion. The UK is the sixth largest military spender in the world. Globally military spending stands at $1.75 trillion. GDAMS offers ordinary people an opportunity to think of what will make for a safer world.

At a recent conference co-hosted by Pax Christi International and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Pope Francis offered a message in which he urged people to "seek solutions to the unique and terrible 'world war in instalments' " Catholic Social Teaching has for decades made the connection between human need, development and disarmament.

GDAMs urges that military spending to be redirected towards social and environmental needs. These needs should take priority over aircraft carriers, long range strike aircraft, armed drones, weapons exports and weapons of mass destruction. In addition we also need new thinking involving civil society and government to create a clear programme of action for spending, research and investment to build sustainable, common security at national and international levels.

* In Coventry - members of Coventry Deanery Justice and Peace Group, Pax Christi, Coventry Quakers and other local peace activists took part in the Global Day Against Military Spending ( GDAMS ) action in the centre of the city.

Petitions were signed and hundreds of leaflets were given out both about Military spending and Coventry Council's investments in the Arms Trade. At the end nuclear weapons were well and truly scrapped when the model of Trident was ceremoniously burnt in the bin!

For more information see: https://demilitarize.org.uk/about/

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