Sunday 12 April 2015

My rivals favour major waste of money

So far I'm the only Enfield North candidate to have replied to CND's letter to candidates. My reply was:

I have personally been opposed to nuclear weapons for about fifty years. The Green Party is opposed to any reliance on, or use of, nuclear weapons, by any nation. We would, therefore:
1)  decommission the UK's own nuclear weapons, and also insist on the removal of US nuclear bases and nuclear weapons from this country.
2)  ban from British ports any vessels (from whatever nation) known or suspected to be carrying nuclear weapons.

It is long-standing Green Party policy to scrap the UK’s current Trident nuclear deterrent: an unnecessary, dangerous and vastly expensive programme which does nothing to reduce conflict or promote peace in the world. I am therefore pleased to support CND’s call that Trident should not be replaced (or renewed) when the decision comes before Parliament in 2016.



Given the policies of their national parties we can assume that the Tory, Labour, LibDem and UKIP candidates all favour spending £100B on replacing Trident. That will give us a weapons system that cannot be used legally and for which its proponents can envisage no situation in which they would want to use it (which, I suppose, shows a degree of sanity) and which cannot be used without US consent anyway.

That money would be enough to build 13 new, Chase Farm size, hospitals every year for 30 years. Or, to stay with military stuff, 17 aircraft carriers.

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