On Sun­day April the 1st, a team of out­laws from Not­ting­ham block­ad­ed the main gate of Faslane Nuclear Sub­ma­rine Base for 4 hours.

This was just one day of the 365 day block­ade of Faslane that was start­ed in Octo­ber in response to our gov­ern­ments plan to replace Tri­dent despite agree­ments signed in inter­na­tion­al law in the Nuclear Non-pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

After months in the plan­ning, over 50 peo­ple from Not­ting­ham and Der­by head­ed up to Scot­land over the week­end. It was an incred­i­bly mixed bunch of peo­ple, aged from 14 to 76, and includ­ing sea­soned peace cam­paign­ers as well as peo­ple com­plete­ly new to protest­ing who felt impas­sioned into act­ing by the threat of new nuclear weapons.

After a day spent march­ing around the nuclear base on the Sat­ur­day, final plans for the block­ade were put into place that evening. It was a daunt­ing task. The main gate was expect­ed to be com­plete­ly held by police, and we need­ed to be there by 6.30am! Nev­er­the­less, despite a tyre blow­ing out just a few miles from the base, block­aders took the police by sur­prise and man­aged a full take-over of the space in front of the main gate sec­onds after arriv­ing. A mix­ture of tried and test­ed con­crete lock-ons, and inno­v­a­tive new meth­ods (plas­ter­cast­ing our­selves to each oth­er) were used by the 15 peo­ple who locked down in front of the gate.

The suc­cess of the oper­a­tion was amaz­ing, and the sup­port from rest of the 50 or so peo­ple was bril­liant – from a con­stant bar­rage of noise and chants, to bis­cuits and cig­a­rettes being lobbed over police lines and screens to the block­aders. The last peo­ple were car­ried off by police at around 11am. Every­one was jubi­lant with suc­cess!

But it wasn’t over yet! The Rebel Clown Army was arriv­ing and mak­ing a real nui­sance of them­selves… one was arrest­ed when found in a vehi­cle he shouldn’t have been in, and oth­ers lat­er locked the police in their own com­pound, mak­ing them look even more like fools than they nor­mal­ly do, when after 20 min­utes of head scratch­ing and call­ing the cut­ting team they found the key just near by!

More mem­bers of the Robin Hood team then stood in front of the gates and sang Palm Sun­day hymns. When threat­ened with arrest, one woman refused to move to allow access to the gates. She was quick­ly joined by a man inspired by her actions who stood with her in sol­i­dar­i­ty and they were both arrest­ed.

So, out of the 50 strong Robin Hood team, 17 were arrest­ed. They were all held for over 24 hours. Yet spir­its were still high when they were all released with only a writ­ten warn­ing. On a per­son­al note, I found this event real­ly inspir­ing. Lots of peo­ple who have nev­er done any­thing like this before came togeth­er to pull off a real­ly suc­cess­ful block­ade. Hope­ful­ly it won’t stop there, and we will con­tin­ue to work togeth­er.

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.