Nottingham folk succesfully blockade nuclear submarine base in Scotland

1.04.2007

Over 50 peo­ple from Not­ting­ham and Der­by suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the Faslane Nuclear Naval Base In Scot­land today. Var­i­ous block­ade groups in intrigu­ing lock-on devices and some plas­tered togeth­er blocked the main entrance to the site. Police start­ed remov­ing peo­ple from 8.30 onwards but had prob­lems with remov­ing peo­ple from a 6 way lock-on device, which held strong for anoth­er 2 hours. The police had to draft in spe­cial­ist equip­ment from oth­er forces to deal with the device. 18 peo­ple were arrest­ed and have been moved to Pais­ley. The block­ade last­ed for over 4 hours. Whilst on the phone to some­one at the scene, one could hear a lot of chant­i­ng and cheer­ing as one pro­test­er man­aged to shout ‘no to nuclear weapons’ just before being put in a police van.

1.04.2007

Over 50 peo­ple from Not­ting­ham and Der­by suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the Faslane Nuclear Naval Base In Scot­land today. Var­i­ous block­ade groups in intrigu­ing lock-on devices and some plas­tered togeth­er blocked the main entrance to the site. Police start­ed remov­ing peo­ple from 8.30 onwards but had prob­lems with remov­ing peo­ple from a 6 way lock-on device, which held strong for anoth­er 2 hours. The police had to draft in spe­cial­ist equip­ment from oth­er forces to deal with the device. 18 peo­ple were arrest­ed and have been moved to Pais­ley. The block­ade last­ed for over 4 hours. Whilst on the phone to some­one at the scene, one could hear a lot of chant­i­ng and cheer­ing as one pro­test­er man­aged to shout ‘no to nuclear weapons’ just before being put in a police van.

The action is part of an inter­na­tion­al cam­paign to block­ade the navel base through­out the year in a bid to stop the replace­ment of the con­tro­ver­sial Tri­dent Mis­sile Sytem. Block­ades have been tak­ing place for the last few months by groups from around the coun­try.

Time­line: (updat­ed when new info comes in)

6.45 — Groups arrive and block­ades in place at the Main Gate. 1 group with oil­bar­rel lock­on device, 1 group with 6 way lock on device, 2 groups of 3 with plas­ter attach­ments (low­er arms plas­tered togeth­er).
8.30 — Police start remov­ing peo­ple.
9.00 — Police have suc­ces­ful­ly removed the oil­bar­rel lock on block­ade. Up to 6 arrests by this time.
9.15 — The group is joined by mem­bers of CIRCO, the cor­po­rate arm of the Rebel Clown Army. See web­site. They will auc­tion off the Tri­dent Mis­sile Sys­tem tomor­row.
9.45 — The block­ade has been in place for 3 hours now. The police announce that they are unable to remove peo­ple from the 6 way lock on device. They are draft­ing in offi­cers with spe­cial­ist equip­ment from anoth­er force.
10.51 — Oth­er offi­cers have arrived and with the new equip­ment peo­ple were removed from the 6 way lock-on device pret­ty quick. The block­ade has been cleared now. 14 peo­ple detained in total.
11.00 — 40 peo­ple strong demon­stra­tion in front of the main entrance. Clowns enter­tain the crowds and have changed the HM Naval Base sign so it now reads ‘Under New Man­age­ment’.
12.05 — A woman and a man are arrest­ed for ‘breach of the peace’ offences. Apper­ent­ly they came too close to the gate. The woman was part of a small group hold­ing a palm sun­day protest.
14.29 — The demon­stra­tion in front of the gates is still hap­pen­ing. Spir­its are high and the clowns pro­vid­ing a load of enter­tain­ment. One clown arrest­ed for apper­ent­ly try­ing to enter a police vehi­cle. Pro­test­ers decide to stay until at least 4 o’clock when a shift change inside the base will take place.