How many cops does it take to police a Tea Party? — Faslane 365

25.03.2007

Fifty peo­ple attend­ed a Tea Par­ty out­side the gates of the Faslane Nuclear Base in Scot­land. Tea was served in chi­na cups and saucers. A table dis­played veg­an scones, cucum­ber sand­wich­es and cakes. Local res­i­dents were invit­ed to share tea with activists and dis­cuss how to dis­arm Britians Tri­dent Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion.

Faslane tea party 1
Faslane tea party 225.03.2007

Fifty peo­ple attend­ed a Tea Par­ty out­side the gates of the Faslane Nuclear Base in Scot­land. Tea was served in chi­na cups and saucers. A table dis­played veg­an scones, cucum­ber sand­wich­es and cakes. Local res­i­dents were invit­ed to share tea with activists and dis­cuss how to dis­arm Britians Tri­dent Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion.

How many cops does it take to police a tea party?…Twenty Six Appar­ent­ly.

A small group of dis­ar­ma­ment activists trav­elled from Brighton to hold a Tea Par­ty at the Faslane Nuclear Base in Scot­land. An invi­ta­tion was sent out to local res­i­dents around the base who have been dis­turbed by the recent string of road block­ades which have been part of the Faslane365 cam­paign*. The Invi­ta­tion read “We would like to cor­dial­ly invite you to a Tea Par­ty full of sophis­ti­ca­tion, poise and wis­dom. We hope to talk with you and test the old eng­lish con­vic­tion that any prob­lem can be sort­ed out with a nice cup of tea”.

The Tea Par­ty was set up on the pave­ment out­side the base and a table dis­played an ele­gant array of veg­an scones, cucum­ber sand­wich­es and cakes. Fifty guests arrived from Glas­gow, Helens­burgh and all over Britain. Bemused passers by wit­nessed per­ma­nent res­i­dents of the Faslane Peace Camp** dressed in their finest gloves and hats, sip­ping tea from chi­na cups and saucers. Old gowns were worn and live gui­tar music enter­tained. The tea par­ty hosts said “We want­ed to counter the bar­bar­i­ty of nuclear weapons and show these uncivi­lased weapons of mass destruc­tion the prop­er way to behave”.

Peace activists and local res­i­dents alike, looked on with laugh­ter as twen­ty six police offi­cers arrived to ‘police’ the event. They formed a line across the gates to the base, cre­at­ing their own block­ade of the pre­vi­ous­ly unob­struct­ed entrance. After hun­gri­ly watch­ing cakes being eat­en, they made the rule that no one could cross the road. The guests con­tin­ued to ignore them and after three hours stood in a line they left.

Fun was had by all.

* Faslane365 is the cam­paign to con­tin­u­ous­ly block­ade the Faslane Nuclear Base for a year. www.faslane365.org
** Faslane Peace Camp has been locat­ed out­side the Sco­tish Nuclear Base for com­ing up to twen­ty five years. It has been wit­ness­ing and cam­paign­ing for peace, mak­ing it the longest stand­ing protest site in the UK.