In May 2005 Stroud Town Council voted unanimously to enroll in Mayors for Peace which was started by Mayor Araki of Hiroshima and comprises of towns that have expressed support to abolish all nuclear weapons. Now with the intensification of the debate about renewal of the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system and a Parliamentary vote promised in early 2007, I have been pushing to extend the project in Gloucestershire.
More than 1430 other Mayors from 120 countries have signed and Stroud Green Mayor Kevin Cranston has now written to all the other Gloucesetershire Mayors - over 20 of them - to encourage them to sign up.
It was surprisingly difficult to get hold of the Mayors addresses, but with help from another Green party member we have trawled records and made phonecalls - amazingly no one keeps a list! Anyhow to see our letter and more info about our opposition to Trident see our news release. The story has already been covered in The Citizen but despite opposition from many Labour MPs like Charles Clarke and the odd Tory, it looks set to be voted through with Conservative support - this is so totally crazy!
Lib Dems estimate it's lifetime costs will be £78 billion - yes £78 BILLION!!!!! Think of what we could do to help create a fairer world by tackling climate change not just here but for the millions who starve and go to bed hungry - that would really help create a more peaceful world. I cannot express how disgusted I am by this Labour government to be doing this. It is not just the money - it is just plain immoral!
The plans to replace Trident with a ‘scaled down’ nuclear arsenal might appease one or two wavering Labour MPs, but will still place the UK in breach of international law, cost billions – and threaten British security. 3 nuke submarines instead of 4 will leave us with a capacity 1280 times greater than that which devastated Hiroshima instead of 1600.
The real security threat we face today is climate change. Trident's replacement will do nothing to help this.
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