Press Releases & Updates 2001

The aim of the campaign is to carry out peaceful, nonviolent, open, safe and accountable direct action against the UK’s Trident nuclear weapon system which it believes to be an illegal weapon of mass destruction. To date the campaign has focused on designated Trident sites, such as the submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde, the submarine building yard at Barrow, AWE Aldermaston and the nuclear weapon convoy base at RAF Wittering. Activists have carried out effective direct action at these sites, on two occasions delaying the entry into full service of submarine HMS Vengeance and causing considerable disruption at the Clyde bases and Aldermaston with intrusions and blockades.

The campaign has the support of 75 parliamentarians (including 26 Westminster MPs), many church leaders and celebrities, and has been awarded this year’s "Alternative Nobel Prize" - the Right Livelihood Award, to be presented in the Swedish Parliament in December. In contrast to this civic support the campaign has attracted a good deal of judicial disapproval leading to 1516 arrests, 213 trials, 1418 days spent in jail (not including police cells) and fines imposed have reached a total of £30,044.

The aim of the long weekend in London is to take action against the political, military and resource nerve centres of the system. There will also be lobbying of MPs as well as vigils outside Westminster Abbey and in Parliament Square.

Trident Ploughshares member Peter Lanyon said:

"We are looking forward to bringing our nonviolent confrontation to the capital where the political responsibility for Trident resides. Any "war" against terror which does not disarm our own terror weapons is utterly phoney. Trident is poised and ready to kill millions of innocent people."

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