A F35 aircraft prepares to land at RAF Marham, Norfolk
OVER 50 protests are planned across Britain tomorrow against Armed Forces Day “rebranding militarism as entertainment,” the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) says — marking a three-fold increase on last year.
And disarmament campaigners will descend on RAF Marham near King’s Lynn to protest at Keir Starmer’s decision to buy 12 nuclear-capable F-35A jets from the United States. The jets are designed to carry B61-12 nuclear bombs, “tactical” nuclear weapons with a blast capacity capable of killing up to 600,000 people.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is rallying at 1pm outside RAF Marham’s main gate under the banner Stop Starmer the Nuclear Rearmer. General secretary Sophie Bolt condemned the “massive and alarming expansion of Britain’s nuclear capability — carried out without public consultation or parliamentary debate.
“This has nothing to do with protecting the British public, and everything to do with fuelling Trump’s global war agenda,” she warned.
The PPU said it and ForcesWatch had received requests for protest materials from over 60 organisations planning to oppose Armed Forces Day.
It said outrage at Britain’s support for Israeli actions in Gaza and Iran could be behind the increase in protests.
Joe Glenton of ForcesWatch said: “As a veteran myself, I think it would be naive to divorce Armed Forces Day from the broader context. Namely, wars in Gaza, Ukraine and the recent bombing of Iran, as well as massive defence spending hikes and the increasing militarisation of many aspects of British society.
“It’s disturbing to see how events like Armed Forces Day are used to manufacture consent for war and militarism.”
Stop the War’s Zareen Taj, who will be organising a protest in Cambridge, said: “A fly-past and parading a naval patrol ship through our streets hits completely the wrong note after the government has proposed to spend more on warfare at the cost of taking away support for those in dire need of welfare.”
Stop the War convener Lindsey German told the Morning Star that armed forces day seeks to “erase memories of the failed wars of recent years.
“This government promotes big increases in arms spending, new nukes, cadet forces in schools to spread the military message. It supports war on Iran and genocide in Gaza. We need an end to this drive to war.”
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