THE Morning Star sends its solidarity and support to those demonstrating tomorrow at Lakenheath, Suffolk, against the return of US nuclear weapons to British soil.
The US decision to place nuclear weapons in Britain, as part of a wider move to locate US missiles in various European client regimes including Britain and Germany, represents a serious heightening in tensions and increases the chance of nuclear warfare specifically.
This irresponsible escalation could not come at a more dangerous time, with war in the Middle East being promoted by the rogue actions of the hard-right Israeli government and the ongoing war in Ukraine being fuelled by Nato expansion and Russia’s imperial pretensions.
Both of these conflicts already involve a potential for nuclear escalation. Israel is an an undeclared nuclear power and one of the four states who are not signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Its actions are backed up by the US, with the single largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world.
The war in Ukraine involves one of the world’s largest nuclear powers, Russia, on one side, while the other side is very much driven and supported by the Nato nuclear-armed alliance, bringing together Britain, the US and France.
This leaves China as the only NPT-recognised nuclear-armed state not currently at war, giving lie to the idea that nuclear weapons somehow prevent conflicts. Indeed, the only thing that nuclear weapons guarantee is that, should these conflicts escalate to a nuclear level, they will kill thousands or even millions and leave areas of the Earth uninhabitable for generations.
The deployment of missiles in European countries, along with the recent US withdrawals from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty, are part of a clear escalation from the US and a return to the nuclear brinkmanship that characterised its stance during the cold war.
From the moment that nuclear weapons are sited on British soil, a key focus of that danger will be the rural West Suffolk village of Lakenheath. By agreeing to British land being used as a forward staging post for US nuclear weapons, the government has made Suffolk and the east of England a major military target in any future nuclear conflagration, putting at risk the lives of British citizens.
However, it is not just the potential military implications of this approach that we should oppose. The whole decision deepens Britain’s connection and commitment to the Nato aggressive military alliance and its politics of nuclear theat. Britain is spending £205 billion on replacing its own (for which, read US-controlled) nuclear weapons system. Supporters of Trident claim that 30,000 jobs are protected by investment in Britain’s nuclear weapons (the real figure according to analysis by CND is closer to 11,500).
The same amount of money invested in the productive economy, would create in excess of two million jobs. Instead, the bulk of the billions spent on Trident will go into the pockets of shareholders in the global arms trade, much of it ending up in the US military-industrial complex.
The same is true of all increased arms spending. Those who benefit are not British workers but the super-rich shareholders of (mainly US-based) multinational arms companies.
This is a basic trade union issue.
Trade unions should protect their members’ jobs and support future high-skilled well-paid job creation by arguing for an industrial strategy that involves the cancellation of Trident replacement and diversification away from the arms industry.
These two measures, along with an alternative international policy, including withdrawal from Nato, would not only make the world a safer place, but would create a more secure future for communities across Britain by starting to reverse the impacts of deindustrialisation and creating jobs for British workers.
These are the policies we must fight for as a movement.
