Why parliament should say no to Trident

The man who told us he went to war to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (there were none), at a cost of over 650,000 lives, now says he wants to spend around £50 billion on weapons of mass destruction with the potential to slaughter 40 million people.

Tony Blair is trying to con us again. He says, “Our independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate insurance."  But Trident nuclear missiles are not a deterrent, they are a recipe for armageddon. Just one of the 192 missiles in the Trident replacement program would wipe out a city of one million people. In other words, it would be one of the worst crimes in human history. It would be — asTony Blair himself said in the 1980s when he was a CND member — "nuclear madness".

And Trident is certainly not independent, when neither the manufacture nor the maintenance of the Trident missiles are under UK control. The US will make the weapons and be paid to maintain them. In reality, Britain's so called independent weapons only function as a supplement to the US nuclear strategy, paid for by the British taxpayer.

As for the cost, that is madness too. £50 billion would pay for 120,000 newly qualified nurses every year for the next 10 years, or 60,000 newly-qualified teachers every year for the next 20 years. Or free public transport for generations.

No stranger to breaking international law – Blair's new generation of weapons of mass destruction violates the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to which Britain is supposed to be fully committed.

Blair wants to rush this legislation through parliament before he leaves office, which he can probably only do with Tory support. He will also be hoping a rushed timetable will forestall a mass protest campaign.

Everyone who opposes Blair's war policies should do what they can in the coming months to prove him wrong, not least by joining the No Trident / Bring the Troops Home demonstration in London 24 February 2007, called by CND and Stop the War Coalition.

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