Faslane action

19.12.2006
Wednes­day morn­ing, 7:30am. A dark road some­where North of Glas­gow. Scot­tish cold and rain beat­ing in my face. I’m chained via a bike lock to Irene, vet­er­an of the Faslane strug­gle. One arm dis­ap­pears into a tube, at the oth­er end of which is my mate Steve. There are sev­en of us, five women and two men, stand­ing in a line stretched across the road.

19.12.2006
Wednes­day morn­ing, 7:30am. A dark road some­where North of Glas­gow. Scot­tish cold and rain beat­ing in my face. I’m chained via a bike lock to Irene, vet­er­an of the Faslane strug­gle. One arm dis­ap­pears into a tube, at the oth­er end of which is my mate Steve. There are sev­en of us, five women and two men, stand­ing in a line stretched across the road.

Head­lights approach through the dark­ness; our high-vis­i­bil­i­ty min­ders rush for­ward arms wav­ing: “Slow down, SLOW DOWN, This is a block­ade don’t you know!” There are flash­ing blue lights approach­ing now from fur­ther down the road; one of us makes the call “HO!” and we sink to the ground, laid flat out on the tar­mac.

The next forty min­utes are spent blink­ing beat­ing rain out of our eyes, gri­mac­ing at police cam­eras and ques­tions, being fed choco­late by our min­ders and even­tu­al­ly, sad­ly, being cut apart by a very effi­cient Scot­tish police force. We’re tak­en away to a mobile pro­cess­ing unit for the usu­al rig­ma­role. As we’re dri­ven away we can see the traf­fic queues back­ing up in three direc­tions; the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine base is the work­place for 7000 loy­al sub­jects of Her Majesty.… and a fair pro­por­tion of them are now late for work.

It’s the least we can do.… They’ll be late for work plen­ty more times in the next twelve months — the Faslane 365 block­ade is intent on dis­rupt­ing activ­i­ty at the nuclear base through­out that time and GOOD LUCK to them! The weapons that are based at Faslane are some of the most awful ever devised by human­i­ty and if used would ush­er in obliv­ion for mil­lions, and mis­ery for mil­lions more.

Our next 24 hours are spent in police lock-ups in Dum­b­ar­ton and Clyde­bank. We are yet to hear if the “procu­ra­tor fis­cal” is intent on press­ing charges but with 408 arrests so far and only 4 pros­e­cu­tions it seems unlike­ly. But either way there are big­ger issues at stake than the odd breach of the peace. As our polit­i­cal mas­ters con­tem­plate the renew­al of Tri­dent — against the wish­es of the major­i­ty of the British peo­ple — it is incum­bent upon the ordi­nary cit­i­zen to express our oppo­si­tion in every way pos­si­ble.

Apart from being gross­ly immoral the renew­al of Tri­dent would under­mine all inter­na­tion­al attempts at nuclear non-pro­lif­er­a­tion, as well as being a finan­cial dis­as­ter for Britain. It would sig­nal 24 bil­lion pounds NOT being spent on hos­pi­tals, schools, the envi­ron­ment, etc etc. What insan­i­ty makes us spend all this mon­ey so that we have the option of killing beau­ti­ful human beings? In the face of such a prospect a few hours in a police cell seems a minor incon­ve­nience.

The Faslane 365 web­site (Please, Join the block­ade!):
http://www.faslane365.org/

So you think that, were Tri­dent built, there’s no chance it would ever be used? Maybe you should read some his­to­ry:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/198173.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

Green­peace’s view:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/7611.pdf

My thoughts while in the cell:
http://nickleberry-huxtable.blogspot.com/2006/12/uncomfortable-truth.html