[NukeNet] Scotland: After 50 years of protest, is it too late to beat Trident?

[The Roy Process]

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After 50 years of protest, is it too late to beat Trident?
There were polite ripples of applause from the bankside residents and diners as the coda of Damon Albarn's Five minutes to Midnight drifted across the cold water of theThames. Albarn, the former Blur frontman, and the musical legend Brian Eno, ably assisted by a 50-strong gospel choir, premiered their anti-nuclear song aboard the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, anchored off Tower Bridge in London.

For the performers it was a serious attempt at protest against nuclear weapons, but whether their musical message carried upriver and penetrated the walls of parliament, where a vote on the replacement of Britain's nuclear deterrent is being held on Wednesday, is an open question.

Thursday night's event seemed quintessentially British in its eccentricity. Greenpeace described it as part of a peaceful process of persuasion. The previous week, Arctic Sunrise had been involved in far more direct action and been seized by the Royal Navy at the Faslane submarine base, but this was a far more restrained affair.

There's a long record of artistic endorsement of the anti-nuclear movement,from the creation of the neutron bomb to the Vietnam war period, and the anti-nuclear movement has been marching from Aldermaston for half a century now. Almost 100,000 took to the streets of London and Glasgow last month for an anti-Trident rally, continuing a tradition of protest but effecting little change in defence policy.

More than 50 recording artists and bands have signed up to the anti-Trident  campaign and when Arctic Sunrise passed under Tower Bridge on Tuesday, the ship played host to a number of VIP supporters, including Ken Livingstone, Annie Lennox, Anita and Gordon Roddic k,Bianca Jagger,Tony Robinson and Major General Sir Patrick Cordingly.

Even Mikhael Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, has urged Britain to think again on replacing Trident, claiming it would send the wrong signal to a destabilised world.

If Albarn and Gorbachev say no, then it cannot happen, can it? Well it can. Artistic endorsement - even if it is Albarn singing aboard a Greenpeaceship - is unlikely to sway Wednesday's £20 billion vote to renew the nuclear deterrent.

Despite a predicted rebellion by more than 100 Labour MPs, it looks like the government will carry the vote on the back of Conservative support. CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, is now pinning its hopes on a Liberal Democrat motion to delay the decision and "extend the period of consultation on Trident to allow all points of view to be heard".

The"let's not make our mind up" motion, which also calls for a reduction in the number of warheads aboard each Trident vessel, appears to best capture the mood of the nation. More than 70%, according to a Channel 4 News poll, want next week's decision delayed. But fewer people are outrightly opposed to nuclear weapons. An ICM poll for The Guardian last June revealed that 51% want a new deterrent and 39% are opposed.

In Scotland, where the Trident submarines are based, opposition is stronger, but so too is the reliance on the defence industry to provide jobs. A survey by BBC Scotland showed a majority of Scottish MPs were opposed to the plans to replace Trident as presented in the white paper and there are 11 Labour MPs definitely against the prime minister's plans to replace Trident.

Jim Devine, the Livingston MP who replaced the late Robin Cook in the Commons, was yesterday reported as preparing to quit as parliamentary private secretary to the health minister, Rosie Winterton, on the eve of the Trident vote. Devine, perhaps regretting his thunder had been stolen by the early disclosure, was unavailable to elaborate yesterday, but Scottish CND remain eternally optimistic that the rebellion will spread.

If previous parliamentary votes are a measure, then the number of abstentions and objections against will be fewer than current calculations. However, if the rebellion extends to the 12 Scottish Labour MPs on the government payroll in actual ministerial posts, then the party would have a more serious crisis on its hands.Scottish Executive minister Malcolm Chisholm caused some embarrassment for Jack McConnell last year by resigning as health minister over Trident, allowing the opposition to make mischief, as they did yesterday.

SNPleaderAlexSalmond saidDevine'spredicted resignation signalled that Labour was split over the issue."Thegovernment's Trident replacement policy willloomlargeovera dividedLabourPartyin ScotlandinMay.Thisresignation underscores that reality," he said.

Far more interesting is the mood of discontent among the Conservatives, whom the government will rely on to win the vote. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, has made it clear the Conservatives want a Trident replacement and want it now. To say otherwise would be to walk into a political beartrap, but there is a growing group of Tory MPs who are sceptical about the need to replace Trident in such a hurry when there is no apparent enemy on the horizon.

MichaelAncram,theformer Northern Ireland minister, has led that sceptical wing, tabling a number of parliamentary questions on the necessity of replacing the deterrent.

"Given the very long lead time for Trident's replacement to be deployed, there is plenty time to examine and develop alternatives," said Ancram. "At the very least, their potential viability should be fully explored before any final decision on the replacement of Trident is taken. On this crucial issue we are owed a full and open debate and, until we have one, my serious doubts about SonofTridentwill remain. Nuclear deterrence was for the 20th century. I do not believe it is for the 21st."

Thegovernment's take-it-or-leave it vote on the deterrenceproposal, withoutwideningthe debatetoconsider otheroptionsorvariations,sows mistrust beyond the Commons, but then, it could have made the decision on replacementwithoutparliamentary involvement. That, after all, is what what happened when Labour's Harold Wilson introduced the nuclear Polaris submarine fleet and when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government introduced Trident in the 1980s.

More time is what everyone appears to be arguing for. A number of defence experts support the view that Britain's deterrent doesn't have to be replaced in the immediate future.

The government maintains the decision has to be made now to prevent any lapse in the deterrentcapabilityand maintainthehuman expertise in the Barrow-in-Furnessboatyard that will build the vessels. Getting a difficult decision off the agenda as part of a Blair legacy for an incoming Brown administration also has advantages.

As the vote approaches, scepticism as to the real reasons for replacing Trident is increasing. Although Faslane is the largest single-site employer in Scotland, with more than 7000 military and civilian staff working there for the navy and defence company Babcock Naval Services, the economic case against Trident is now being made by Scottish CND and the STUC.

In a report to be issued this week, the organisations argue that claims Scotland would lose 11,000 jobs if Trident was not replaced are far off the mark. The report finds the reduction in direct, indirectandinducedcivilian employmentacrossScotland would be less than 1800 and this reduction would not take place until after 2022.

When it comes to anything from the killing power of nuclear weapons to the cost - estimatesoftheTrident replacement vary from £20bn to £75bn - then all statistics have to be treated with care.

But perhaps it's the most indisputable figures that are themostrevealinginthe STUC/CNDreportwhich states that more than 40,000 Scottish defence-related jobs have been shed since 1990 without significant government intervention to ensure the provision of alternative employment. It notes that a rescheduling of the withdrawal of the existing Trident submarines to coincide with the introduction of the new conventionally armed Astute-class submarines,alsotobebasedat Faslane, would smooth employment and minimise any redundancies.

For most opponents, nuclear weapons are a moral issue rather than an economic one, but there are legal considerations too. There are many who argue that extending the lifetime of the Trident submarines is illegal under the terms of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty which is meant to obligate the nuclear states to work towards disarmament.

The government says it is working around this by reducing the number of operationally available warheads from 200 to 160. There is some confusion among nuclear watchers whether this amounts to a real cut or is simply the confirmation of a previously unannounced reduction. Blair has also said he wants to determine whether the number of submarines can be cut from four to three.

Trident cannot defend the nation from the threat of terrorism. But none of the original club of nuclear states looks willing to downsize its nuclear arsenal while other more volatile nations such as North Korea and Iran are gearing up to join in the game.

The arguments will be familiar to those who will turn up for the lobby of parliament ahead of Wednesday's vote and the hundredsofScottishanti-nuclear protesters who will be involved in one of the regular blockades of the Faslane base on the day. But, despite such protests, and a number of Labour defections, the decision, which has far-reaching implications for Britain, will pass off with only a shrug from the British public.

Yet Kate Hudson, CND's chairwoman, disagrees and says the public is far from complacent over Trident. "Over the past few weeks we have seen a massive build-up ofoppositiontoreplacingTrident. There have been hundreds of meetings across the country, attended by people from all walks of life.

"We have appealed to the government for more time to debate Trident and we are now doing all we can to get our message across by lobbying MPs and ministers. MPs need to understand the seriousness of the decision they are about to take."

10:03pm Saturday 10th March 2007



By Torcuil Crichton



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