Firstly, thanks to those who attended the Scottish CND webinar on nuclear power last night. We were delighted to host Linda Pentz Gunter (Beyond Nuclear), Pete Roche (No2NuclearPower) and Dylan Morgan (People Against Wylfa B/Welsh Anti Nuclear Alliance), for a timely discussion on the risks, false promises and opportunity costs of nuclear power.
The webinar was timely for several reasons. Firstly, because 26th of April this year marks 40 years since the Chornobyl nuclear disaster, which had multi-generational impacts in Ukraine and across Europe. Secondly, nuclear power has been an election issue in Scotland as pro-nuclear parties have attempted to make a controversy of the Scottish government’s long-standing ban on new nuclear projects.
Further, the UK government has made new nuclear a core plank of its net-zero plans. This is despite the costs of existing nuclear projects spiralling wildly out of control, with new nuclear plants increasingly behind schedule and key nuclear infrastructure having been deemed non-viable by the government itself.
Our webinar discussion will soon be uploaded in full on our YouTube channel for those who were not able to attend but want to learn more about nuclear power and why it is not needed in Scotland.
In other news, Scottish CND was pleased to join Peace Education Scotland at the STUC in Dundee this past week!
We hosted a fringe event on Tuesday where we welcomed leading figures from across the trade union movement to discuss the implications of increased military spending for Scottish society, and what the movement’s response should be.
Our fringe meeting preceded an important vote on Wednesday 22nd April in which the STUC voted to oppose the UK government’s plans to hike military spending. This follows the TUC’s vote along similar lines in last year’s “Wages Not Weapons” resolution.
A militarised economy will not serve the people of Scotland, as every pound spent on weapons could create more socially useful jobs in other economic sectors.
British military bosses and think-tank hawks have been taking to the national media to proclaim Britain is unprepared for war, at the same time as presenting war with Russia as inevitable. On this basis they demand more public money, nodding along with Trump’s demands for NATO countries effectively double their military budgets.
But the Ministry of Defence already enjoys the 6th largest military budget of any country in the world. In fact, between the UK, France and Germany, military spending already massively exceeds that of Russia (the peer nation mostly often characterised as an imminent threat), and that is before accounting for other European countries with huge defence budgets like Poland and Italy.
There is a strong case that any weakness in the British military should be understood as the result of inefficiency, poor procurement, and an over-investment in exorbitantly expensive US military technology.
The Alternative Defence Review argues British military spending is already bloated, and further explains the woeful economic and employment returns on military investment compared to other sectors of the economy. This important document underpins the case for an economy built for welfare, not warfare – a case which Scottish CND will continue to make in Scotland’s industrial movement and beyond.