The government estimates replacing Trident as costing £80
billion. Other estimates are higher. It’s a lot of money. The Green Party does
not believe we need the fire power to kill 45 million people. There is no
situation in which that kind of carnage could possibly be justified. Labour and Tories alike have claimed Trident
means jobs, but according to this article, Ministry of Defence figures say we’re talking more like 520 jobs based on
Trident at the moment. Obviously making new weapons will involve more people, but
perhaps not on the scale that has been suggested. If the only interest is job
creation, there might be safer, more productive ways of creating jobs that actually achieve something good, if you
had a hundred billion to play with.
What would you spend it on?
We want to hear and share alternatives. How would you deploy
that much money? What are your priorities? Do you think it’s the best value for
money in terms of defence? Write in. Leave a comment. Tweet at us (@stroudgreens) put a comment on the
facebook wall https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stroud-District-Green-Party/178834628826252?fref=ts
and if you want to get indepth, send longer pieces to brynnethnimue (at) gmail
(dot) com and I’ll put them up as guest posts.
Let’s get an alternative conversation going about what we
might spend one hundred billion on for the common good. This is not pie in the
sky thinking, because if the money is there to pay for weapons, the money is
there to pay for other things and if we want alternatives, we should not just talk
about them, we should demand them!
(The photo shows a sew up session from Wool Against Weapons. How many war refugees could have not just blankets, but food and proper shelter, for £100 billion?)
2 comments:
Well, I would like the money to go towards researching renewable energy options, like oilgae.
And also vegan cheese. ;-)
Benefits from not renewing Trident are not just economic - include for example adhering to legal obligations like the Non-Proliferation Treaty that we signed, improved national security as Ministry of Defence budgets would be more flexible to emerging challenges re security in 21st century, strengthening the non-proliferation regime, deterring nuclear proliferation and de-escalating international tensions and moral and diplomatic leadership in global multilateral disarmament initiatives.
Where to begin with what £100bn could be for? It would certainly address some of the real threats facing modern Britain – climate change, the recession, terrorism - indeed serious investment in renewables and energy efficiencies would tackle all three.
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