CND Conference 2021 – No new nuclear arms race

Event Date: 24th October 2021
Location: Internet 11:00 and 13.45 BST


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CND Conference 2021 – No new nuclear arms race

No New Nuclear Arms Race – public conference

We invite everyone to join us on Sunday 24 October for what is set to be a brilliant day of discussion — please register via Zoom here.

In our morning session, from 11am, we’ll discuss the global impact of the UK’s illegal nuclear arsenal increase. Will the 40% increase in nuclear warheads lead to a new arms race? Will it increase the risk of nuclear war? We’re very happy to have with us Professor Paul Rogers from the UK; Vijay Prashad from the Tricontinental Institute in India and across the Global South; Colonel Ann Wright from Veterans for Peace in the US; and Ruth Rohde from the Arms Information Centre in Freiburg, Germany. CND’s Tom Unterrainer will chair.

And after lunch, starting at 1.45pm, we will turn our attentions to Britain and the TPNW as it is the time to acknowledge past wrongs. With the TPNW now in force, Britain needs to take a long look at the legacy of its nuclear weapons testing, how it can remediate that, and what it must do to sign up to the TPNW. We’re pleased to be joined by Talei Luscia Mangioni, a campaigner for a Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific; Rebecca Johnson, who has worked extensively on the UK and TPNW compliance; and Alan Owen, from Labrats, campaigning with nuclear test veterans. Chaired by CND General Secretary Kate Hudson.

If you have any queries please email Rob at [email protected].

CND AGM & Policy Conference

Thank you to all CND members and groups who attended this year’s AGM and Policy Conference on Saturday 16 October.

CND Council election results & group representatives

OfficersDirectly elected Council membersGroup representatives

 

Policy Conference resolutions

The following resolutions were passed by CND Conference 2021:

Resolution 1: Opposing Britain’s new nuclear policies: illegal and immoral

Conference notes that:

In March this year, the government published its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. The Review projects and promotes a post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ that is on the offensive, ‘projecting force’ globally. It includes a major announcement on nuclear weapons, increasing the UK’s nuclear arsenal from the current approximately 195 warheads to 260.

This reverses the decision by the coalition government in 2010 to begin the process of reducing the arsenal to 180. This will end three decades of gradual reductions in the UK’s nuclear arsenal. It is at odds with the renewal of the New START treaty by Presidents Biden and Putin earlier this year which continues bilateral nuclear weapons reductions by the two countries. It has led to observations that the UK is starting a new nuclear arms race.

The Integrated Review also includes a change in nuclear use posture — now reserving the right to use nuclear weapons not only against nuclear threats but against supposedly comparable threats, such as chemical and biological weapons or ‘emerging technologies’; potential nuclear targets also now include non-nuclear weapons states that are said to be heading in the direction of acquiring nuclear weapons — or, those states judged to be ‘in material breach of [their] non-proliferation obligations.’ This is easily understood as a thinly veiled reference to Iran.

Conference believes that:

  1. These new policies — together with Trident replacement — are illegal under international law, as advised by an expert legal opinion commissioned by CND.
  2. Opposition to these new policies must be built at every level nationally and internationally alongside our work to cancel Trident and its replacement.

Conference agrees:

  1. To make opposition to these policies a priority campaign of CND.

Proposed by Kate Hudson

Emergency Motion 1: AUKUS

CND Conference notes:

  1. the Prime Minister’s announcement of the AUKUS military pact between the UK, US and Australia, which he claims ‘will promote stability in the Indo-Pacific region’;
  2. this agreement covers quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, underwater capabilities, and long-range strike capabilities including US Tomahawk missiles; and
  3. provides for the US and UK to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

Conference is aware that AUKUS:

  1. was announced as the Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group was on manoeuvres in the South China Sea, and has recently conducted exercises with strike forces from several countries including the US, Japan, India and Australia; and
  2. is generating tensions with France, Germany, and China.

Conference is further aware that:

  1. the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has opposed AUKUS, calling for the resources to be devoted to jobs and healthcare;
  2. has been welcomed by the Labour Party leadership but rejected by a significant number of UK trade unions, including 77% of Labour-affiliated unions which voted in favour of an emergency motion at Labour conference promoted by Labour CND.

Conference believes AUKUS:

  1. contravenes the NPT stipulation that nuclear technology exchange can only take place for peaceful purposes, setting a further precedent for the proliferation of nuclear materials;
  2. is in the interest of US-UK arms manufacturers;
  3. represents Global Britain’s further subordination to US interests;
  4. will increase military tensions in the region; and
  5. add to the growing Cold War with China.

Conference:

  1. welcomes prompt action by CND in conjunction with the Stop the War Coalition to launch an initiative against AUKUS;
  2. congratulates Labour CND for facilitating a majority vote against AUKUS at Labour conference;
  3. joins with MUA, other trade unions and peace organisation in opposing war and wasteful, environmentally harmful military spending; and
  4. decides that building opposition to AUKUS domestically and internationally will be a major priority for CND in the year ahead.

Proposed by CND Council’s International Advisory Group and London Region CND

Resolution 2: Welfare not warfare

Conference notes that:

  1. Our 2020 conference expectation to be “campaigning in a post-virus world” has been spectacularly failed by the UK government. The delta variant was first identified in India in December 2020, in the UK on 28 March 2021, with 2,889 cases recorded by 18 May. Coronavirus infections have risen as high as 50,000 per day through 2021.
  2. On 19 November 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a statement on the Integrated Review to MPs, announcing a £24 billion increase for the Ministry of Defence, investing £190bn over four years. “I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic, amid every other demand on our resources,” Johnson said.
  3. The PM delayed publication of Integrated Review until 16 March, committing “to shaping the open international order of the future” but on nuclear weapons the government “will extend this longstanding policy of deliberate ambiguity and no longer give public figures for our operational stockpile.”
  4. Similar proposals of false security occupied the agenda of the NATO 2030 Communique of 14 June, with NATO’s mission statement having shaped the Integrated Review.
  5. As the figurehead of a super-spreader government, the announcement by Johnson of an end to safeguarding restrictions on 19 July confirmed a reckless attitude to the pandemic and the new delta variant. After 18 months of providing coronavirus care, the 3% pay rise for NHS staff announced on 22 July does little to help their efforts to counter new waves of coronavirus into 2022.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Expose future spending on inappropriate defence projects in the Integrated Review, especially the Trident Replacement, as a major factor in the ongoing failure of the government to rescue the health of the country from the pandemic.
  2. Condemn the failure of the government to engage with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a missed opportunity to restore public health from the coronavirus pandemic through nuclear disarmament.
  3. Demand a judge-lead public inquiry into Integrated Review-initiated spending and coronavirus pandemic spending.
  4. Support an increased pay offer to all NHS staff.

Proposed by Tom Cuthbert

Composite 1: The climate crisis

Conference notes:

  1. Political and protest action up to and through the period of the COP26 Conference and beyond.
  2. CND has actively campaigned alongside direct action organisations, including Trident Ploughshares, Extinction Rebellion Peace and Campaign against Climate Change, emphasising that nuclear power is not carbon neutral, clean or green energy.
  3. CND will participate in the COP26 coalition, however climate change is here and the scale and pace of ambition needed to stabilise global temperature increases to 1.5°C is unlikely to be realised in the final COP agreement.
  4. The UK Defence and Security Industrial Strategy (DSIS) of March 2021, sets out the government’s vision and priorities to ‘sustain and grow onshore industrial capability and skills for the future in those areas most critical to defence and security’.
  5. UK drive to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile, and the biggest increase in defence spending for 70 years, along with investment in new nuclear power facilities, vastly overshadow the budget for decarbonisation.

Conference believes that:

  1. Peace is a necessary condition for the environment and for mitigation of the conditions leading to climate change, while military activities have drastically opposite effects of militarisation of society, climate apartheid and closed borders.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Support calls by the Conflict and Environment Observatory and others for military emission reduction targets to be included in commitments by all at the COP26 conference;
  2. Emphasise the primacy of the threats to human and ecological survival posed by the military-industrial complex;
  3. Welcome steps that secure jobs for workers and to reinforce the need to work with trade unions on how recent nationalisations and investment within the defence sector can be used to diversify into employment which meets the needs of the ecological and climate crisis;
  4. Expose the false “greenwash” of so-called negativeemissions technologies, including nuclear power;
  5. Call for a new social and ecological contract that promotes peace, public services, health and social care, and socially useful work.
  6. Continue to offer a leadership role in the climate movement, joining in political and direct action for peace and climate justice.

Proposed by Cumbria and Lancashire CND, Labour CND and Tony Staunton

Resolution 3: Defence diversification and climate catastrophe

Conference notes that:

  1. Contrary to official propaganda, Prime Minister Johnson’s right-wing Tory government is continuing to impose austerity upon the working class through public-sector pay cuts, privatisation of public services, increased spending on “security” and surveillance, and authoritarian legislation to further criminalise welfare claimants, asylum-seekers, travellers, protesters and trade union industrial action.
  2. Trade union struggles for jobs and employment rights are an essential component of all campaigns for social justice, with the collective power of organised labour continuing be a potential source of rapid social and political change.
  3. The CND campaigns for defence diversification and transfer of nuclear and military work into green jobs to rebuild social infrastructure and combat climate change has been of significant influence inside the British trade union movement and internationally.
  4. In the face of pandemic, economic crisis, climate catastrophe and increased military tension there has never been a more pressing time for trade union initiatives to promote defence diversification, especially the cancellation of Trident replacement and the immediate and just transition of those jobs into socially useful and green industries.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Revise and update our literature on defence diversification to include factual information on the threats from the current build-up of military tensions and the threats from climate catastrophe, illustrating and publicising the need for the most urgent transfer of jobs and productive forces from military to green infrastructure employment.
  2. Refresh our trade union campaigning for a “just transition” from military industries, focusing our activities upon the TUC, Unite, and GMB with local CND activists routinely contacting and communicating with trades councils and branches of Unite and GMB which organise within the military and carbon-fuel industrial sectors.
  3. Renew and refresh our relationships with environmental and social justice groups including Friends of the Earth, Extinction Rebellion and the Campaign against Climate Change, especially at local branch level to ensure CND inclusion in local initiatives and specifically proposing joint work to influence trade union policy and affiliation.

Proposed by Plymouth Trades Council

Emergency Motion 2: TUC Congress 2021

Conference notes with grave concern the Trades Union Congress’ September 2021 pledge to support and actively campaign for “the construction of new nuclear plants… and the development of Small Modular Reactors.” Conference rejects the TUC conclusion that a balanced energy mix includes nuclear power.

Conference recognises that, despite promises of a “green jobs bonanza” in Scotland, that employment in Scotland’s low-carbon and renewable energy economy fell from 23,200 in 2014 to 21,400 in 2019.

Conference further notes the tripartite AUKUS military pact is supported by only a minority of UK Labour Party affiliated unions, but as an opportunity for job creation.

Conference welcomes:

  1. The support by the Labour Party conference for the motion brought by Labour CND highlighting that AUKUS is likely to be in breach of our obligations under the NPT.
  2. Australian trade unions’ opposition to the development of nuclear submarines and other nuclear industry, seeing it as a threat to jobs, with investment better directed to healthcare and renewable energy technology.

Conference resolves:

  1. To seek dialogue with the TUC, and trade unions in the engineering and manufacturing sector, to offer evidence of the ineffective and detrimental results of any promotion and investment in a future for nuclear power, including for jobs;
  2. To step up efforts to develop a defence diversification strategy with trade unions as part of a wider industrial strategy to address the climate, health, and economic crises.
  3. To build international support for this strategy, including with Australian and US trade unions, arguing that policies based on peace and justice are the best defence of jobs and ensuring a just transition.

Proposed by CND Council’s Trade Union Advisory Group and Labour CND

Emergency Motion 3: Afghanistan

CND notes that:

  1. The 20 year US-NATO war in Afghanistan has ended in humiliating failure, leaving behind a volatile situation risking social collapse, rising terrorism and civil war;
  2. Afghanistan remains a focus of friction between nuclear weapons states – India, Pakistan, Russia, China as well as the US and Britain – and further degeneration in its situation would be highly dangerous;
  3. The ending of the ‘forever war’ is no retreat from US war-mongering with its ‘New Cold War’ hostilities towards China ramping up;
  4. Biden’s failure to consult allies has exacerbated doubts within the NATO alliance;
  5. Even as Tory ministers complained of Biden’s abandonment, the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier flotilla was on ‘inter-operabiity’ manoeuvres with the US Navy and US F-35Bs in the South China Sea.

CND believes that:

  1. Stabilisation is the utmost priority both to ensure security within Afghanistan and to ease regional tensions between powers armed with nuclear weapons;
  2. Crises, regional and global, cannot be resolved without cooperation – no matter how difficult – among all major powers together with all other powers involved;
  3. Terrorism as a threat to all makes stabilisation in the interests of all, providing a basis for cooperation.

Conference resolves:

  1. to call on the government to cease military pressure; and to work consensually within the UN framework to seek to de-escalate tensions, take a lead in providing humanitarian assistance and supporting economic reconstruction;
  2. to support calls for an independent Inquiry examining the UK’s involvement in war to enable a shift away from a military-led foreign policy to one based on cooperation and diplomacy
  3. to continue to campaign against the New Cold War on China as well as a military-led Global Britain and NATO’s expansion, with their Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’, highlighting all the combined dangers.

Proposed by Greater Manchester & District CND

Resolution 4: Nuclear ban communities

Conference notes that:

  1. An increasing number of local authorities, both large municipalities and small parish and town councils, have passed resolutions calling on the UK government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
  2. An increasing number of MPs and some peers have signed the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge in support of this position.
  3. Some councillors and faith leaders have so far also signed bespoke pledges developed by Yorkshire CND supporting this position.

Conference commends all regions, branches, and activists for their success so far and urges all regions to lead on this work over the coming year.

Conference believes the TPNW becoming international law represents an unparalleled opportunity to galvanise public support, and the support of the local leaders who represent it, in favour of the UK becoming a signatory to the treaty. Conference further believes that by asking their local council to pass a resolution to this effect or by asking their MP, councillor, or faith leader to make a pledge supporting this position, activists and supporters take practical action at a local level to help create the necessary conditions to make this a reality. These actions also empower local activists to act in concert opening the possibility that new local CND groups might form in their wake.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Promote the bespoke pledges created by Yorkshire CND to regions and groups.
  2. Ask CND regions to establish an action plan to:
    1. identify and approach councils, large or small, in their area whose political composition may favour passing a Nuclear Ban Communities resolution; approach councillors and faith leaders to sign the bespoke pledges;
    2. identify and approach local MPs and peers to sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge;
    3. host an information and skills workshop for local groups and activists wishing to support this campaign;
  3. Support new local groups which may emerge from these actions.
  4. Create content on the CND website under “Campaigns, Nuclear Ban Communities” to list the names and local authority of those councillors and the names and faith communities of those faith leaders who have signed these pledges.

Proposed by Yorkshire CND

Resolution 5: Public support for the nuclear ban

Conference notes that:

  1. There are currently at least 86 signatories and 55 states parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which came into force in January 2021.
  2. The Survation poll of 1,033 people aged 18 and over living in the UK, commissioned by CND and carried out in January 2021, which found that:
    • 59% of the public think the UK government should sign up to the TPNW, including 50% of Conservative and 68% of Labour voters.
    • 77% support a “total ban on all nuclear weapons globally”, including 71% of Conservative and 83% of Labour voters.
    • Both the UK signing the TPNW and a total global nuclear ban have majority support across every single demographic (age, regions and nations, education level, income bracket, 2019 general election vote, and 2016 EU referendum vote).

Conference further notes:

  1. The repeated refusals of the UK Conservative government to support the new treaty.
  2. Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey asserting that the Labour Party’s support for nuclear weapons is “non-negotiable”.
  3. Towns and cities around the world — including Washington, Paris and Manchester — are bypassing their governments’ opposition and becoming Nuclear Ban Communities.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Prioritise CND’s parliamentary work in promoting the TPNW and showing how political leaders are keeping up with public opinion and global disarmament initiatives.
  2. Encourage CND members and groups to arrange meetings with their local MP.
  3. Work with partners in Parliament to lobby the British government to support the TPNW and work towards the global elimination of nuclear weapons.
  4. Build the Nuclear Ban Communities campaign.

Proposed by Labour CND

Resolution 6: Non-Proliferation Treaty

Conference notes that the nuclear powers continuously break both the spirit and intent of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by updating existing weapons systems and introducing new weapons systems. However, they always claim that their actions are within the rules of the treaty and give assurances that they remain committed to its aspirations.

The UK government’s proposals, contained in the Integrated Review, for a 40% increase in the number of nuclear warheads is different. It is a deliberate breach of the NPT which, if left to stand, could result in others following suit and a rapid collapse of the Treaty.

Hopefully the Review Conference in 2022 will censure the UK but that is not enough. We must demonstrate the British people’s commitment to the principals and aspirations of NPT by building an all-party alliance strong enough to force the government to withdraw its outrageous proposals.

Conference resolves that CND, nationally and locally and in addition to independent campaigning, must approach all parties requesting their support and commitment to the principals of the NPT. By these measures we should be able to build a movement capable of forcing a U-turn on the government.

Proposed by Reigate and Redhill CND

Resolution 7: Scotland (as amended)

Conference notes that:

  1. The 2021 Scottish general election has increased the support for the nuclear disarmament in the Scottish Parliament, adding to the opportunities for Scottish political pressure on the UK government.
  2. The importance of maintaining nuclear disarmament as a key issue in the ongoing debate about selfdetermination for Scotland.
  3. The opportunities for linking nuclear weapons policies to climate emergency responses at COP26 in Glasgow at the end of this year.

Conference particularly notes:

  1. The 26 September events to mark the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
  2. Actions around 3 October, the anniversary of the first UK atmospheric test in Australia, and 4 November to mark the impact of nuclear weapons and militarism on the climate emergency.
  3. To continue to work with Scottish CND in opposing nuclear power, highlighting particularly the desecration of the land and the suffering endured by mainly indigenous peoples, for example, the indigenous Australians and the Navajo in the USA, caused by uranium mining.
  4. The possibilities for collaboration and information sharing between Parliamentary CND and the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group for Nuclear Disarmament.

Conference resolves to continue to work collaboratively with Scottish CND, highlighting the squandering of the UK’s resources on nuclear weapons at a time when continued austerity risk increasing inequalities, harming the most vulnerable and detracting from appropriate responses to the climate emergency by sustaining the threat of global destruction through nuclear catastrophe.

Resolution 8: Space militarisation and the UK

Conference notes that:

  1. The UK has been reported as being willing to host a highpowered Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability in Scotland or “further south”, to be used by US Space Force;
  2. The radar at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire is already part of the US Space Surveillance Network and is also used as an integral component of the US Missile Defence System which can be used to reduce or eliminate any retaliation following a US nuclear first strike;
  3. Lockheed Martin has received £23.5 million from the government to identify sites for spaceports in the UK and is establishing its own spaceport in Scotland, despite environmental and other objections;
  4. In 2019 the UK was the first to join the US Operation Olympic Defender which was established to build international partnerships for military space activities;
  5. The UK Space Command was officially formed on 1 April 2021 and said to be needed because the space domain is “critical” to the UK remaining a “leading 21st-century power”;
  6. These actions are implicating the UK in US plans to dominate space which are increasing international tensions, generating an arms race in space and making the UK even more of a target in any US military confrontation;
  7. The increase in space dependence and space debris means that accidents involving or failures in vital military space components become more likely, which could lead to catastrophic consequences;
  8. The UK should explore ways in which an arms race in outer space can be prevented and space can be explored and used peacefully by all nations.

Conference resolves to:

  1. Oppose the siting of any new US military radar anywhere in the UK;
  2. Continue to oppose the existing US bases in the UK that operate as centres for US military activities including missile defence and drone strikes;
  3. Continue to support the work of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and Keep Space for Peace Week;
  4. Call for an investigation into the environmental effects of space ports, space tourism and space launches in general.

Proposed by Yorkshire CND

Find out more – call Caroline on 01722 321865 or email us.