Ahead of an anti-Trident protest outside Lib Dem Conference this Saturday (see below), CND has welcomed Danny Alexander MP’s description of the Trident nuclear weapon system as ‘the UK’s last, unreformed bastion of Cold War thinking.’
Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., the Lib Dem Minister stated that ‘there are credible alternatives [to Trident] that don’t compromise UK security or our close cooperation with the US, but do allow us to move on from the Cold War.’
But CND’s General Secretary, Kate Hudson, said that while the Lib Dems have been ‘clear-sighted’ about Trident’s strategic irrelevance, they have ‘blinkered themselves’ when it comes to pursuing the only logical conclusion: scrapping Trident and cancelling its replacement.
Kate Hudson said:
‘It is time that the cobwebs of Cold War dogma were swept out of defence thinking in the UK. The Liberal Democrats are unique in the three big Westminster parties in their clear-sighted appraisal of the archaic and irrelevant nature of Trident. But they appear to have blinkered themselves when it comes to the only sensible conclusion: follow the logic and scrap Trident.’
‘Danny Alexander is right to say that challenging Trident replacement is not a ‘threat’ to the special relationship between the US and UK. And as the recent vote on Syria in the House of Commons shows, this relationship is not, and cannot be, built on joint wars and cooperation over weapons of mass destruction.’
CND and Scottish CND will be joined by Lib Dem members in a protest outside the party’s conference in Glasgow this Saturday (14th): calling on delegates to support the anti-Trident amendment to the Defence Policy Paper.
Lib Dem Conference: Time to Scrap Trident Rally
11:15am – 12:30pm
Saturday 14th September
Outside Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow