Firstly a quick reminder of our upcoming events:
14th September, 7pm: Pre-AGM members and supporters’ meeting.
24th September, 5pm GMT: Dimensions of a Dubious Submarine Deal AUKUS Webinar.
There’s also the upcoming Stop the War Scotland AGM:
19th September, 1pm: Stop the War Scotland AGM 2026: Building A Movement Against War.
Recent news has been dominated by conflict involving blatant disregard for international law by Israel, the USA and Russia, all nuclear-armed states.
UK military infrastructure has supported US warfighting, including US support to the Israeli military. However, the recent announcement of an embargo on trade with the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is a step that gives hope. It shows political courage to stand up for international law and simultaneously to move visibly out of line with US ‘might is right’ policies.
Perhaps this could foreshadow stepping away from treating nuclear threats as justifiable. Surely our politicians will eventually see beyond the glorification of nuclear weapons as our entitled ‘must have’, a view that reflects military entanglement with and political kowtowing to the USA.
Remember the UK’s nuclear weapon system depends on US missiles, built, maintained and programmed in the USA. The UK permits the use of its bases by the USA because of dependence on the USA for its nuclear weapons programme. This goes back to the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement first signed in the 1950s. Meanwhile the majority of states in the world are backing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which now has the signatures of 100 of the 193 state members of the United Nations.
Thank you for being with us in working toward a Scotland that joins them.
Given the startling headlines of this week you probably did not see an account of a large blimp balloon deflating and plunging to the ground over Yorkshire.
It happened when military personnel were taking part in rehearsal for a cold war nuclear scenario that is still routinely practiced.
In the imagined scenario, the UK has suffered a nuclear strike that has destroyed normal communication systems along with most of us but in an underground bunker the Prime Minister wants to tell a nuclear armed submarine to launch its nuclear weapons. Surely this highlights the suicidal omnicidal nature of nuclear weapons and the tragic absurdity of world at constant readiness to fight nuclear war.
We know a better world is possible and ‘we can hear her breathing’.