Convoy of UK lorries carrying nuclear warheads
July 12, 2014
Four converted lorries carrying half a dozen nuclear warheads sneaked through Glasgow at midnight yesterday according to NukeWatch, a group of individuals that monitors the transport of nuclear weapons in the UK.
Scottish CND coordinator, John Ainslie, followed the convoy as it drove along the M74 from Hamilton, through the South of Glasgow, then over the Erskine Bridge.
“This is an insult to the people of Glasgow and the rest of Scotland,” said Mr Ainslie. “Only 10 weeks before we vote on whether to be independent, the UK Government have sent this massive convoy of Weapons of Mass Destruction through the centre of Scotland’s largest city. The convoy was probably carrying six Trident bombs, each one seven times more powerful than the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. This should be taken as a clear reminder of why people need to vote Yes – to rid Scotland of these horrific nuclear weapons.”
Police ‘protecting’ the nuclear-laden lorries from protestors at Loch Lomond
FOUR peace activists were arrested after blockading the nuclear warhead-laden lorries near Loch Lomond, en route to Faslane where the UK nuclear Trident submarines are based.
Bill Kidd, a Member of the Scottish Parliament and Co-President of the international network Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), said the convoys represented “a totally unacceptable risk to the public.”
“Weapons of this nature can never be used responsibly. They’re against humanitarian law and, while they do exist in the world, we shouldn’t be transporting them on public roads in the dead of night when ordinary people pass in cars and surrounded by people sleeping in their homes.”
Bill Kidd MSP (centre) hosting the Abolition 2000 Assembly in the Scottish Parliament in 2013
Kidd has written to Defence Secretary Philip Hammond calling for an immediate halt to nuclear convoys traveling through Glasgow. (See Letter from Bill Kidd MSP to Philip Hammond).
“The risk to the public from these convoys simply shows the utter folly of basing nuclear weapons just 30 miles from Scotland’s biggest population centre,” says Kidd. “The people of Glasgow and Scotland as a whole have made clear our opposition to weapons of massive destruction being based on the Clyde – but yet Westminster is committed to wasting another £100bn on its obsession with nuclear weapons. With a Yes vote will we be able to put a stop to these immoral weapons traveling through our cities when we sleep by banning them from Scotland for good.”
Bill Kidd and CND Scotland co-hosted the Abolition 2000 Annual Assembly in Edinburgh in 2013. The Assembly adopted the declaration From a Nuclear Free Scotland to a Nuclear Weapon Free World supporting the efforts of Scotland to prohibit nuclear weapons from their territory. The statement was released at the Clyde Naval Base in Faslane, Scotland by an Abolition 2000 international delegation (See Abolition 2000 at Faslane: Get Rid of the Nukes!)
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