Press Releases & Updates 2001

At 5 p.m. this afternoon the campaigners handed in a letter for Prime Minister Tony Blair. They then locked themselves with padlocks and chains to the gate that protects the street. One activist, Dave Rolstone(54),a boatbuilder from Faslane Peace Camp in Scotland, climbed up the gate and perched on one of the ornamental lamp-posts. The banner hung on the gateway read: "CLOSED. Nuclear Terrorists Under Investigation. UK’s Trident Missiles Could Kill Millions."

When police cut through most of the locks and chains the activists sat down against the gate and it was an hour before they were dragged or led away. There were no arrests.

The letter says:

"Your present "war on terrorism" has yet again highlighted to us and to the campaign, the terrorism which is implicit in our very possession of nuclear weapons. How can you argue that one Trident warhead of 100 kilotons can be used without killing thousands and terrorising thousands more? ... We ask that the UK practises the same civilised values that we expect from other countries in the world."

Trident Ploughshares member David Mackenzie said: "The Prime Minister who talks about the sanctity of human life is the same Prime Minister who has said he is willing to press the Trident button and let loose an unspeakable terror on millions of innocent people. We are determined to go on exposing the failure of the UK to practise what it so loudly preaches."

The Downing Street demonstration is part of a long weekend of action in London by the Trident Ploughshares campaign which is committed to nonviolent, open and accountable direct action against the Trident nuclear weapon system.

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