CND's Press Round-Up - 16th March 2021
Posted: 16th March 2021
Dear all,
Please find today’s press round up below. The headlines are understandably dominated by today’s Integrated Review of defence and foreign policy, including the shock announcement that the number of nuclear warheads will be increased substantially. Thank you for your continued useful feedback and support.
Nuclear Weapons
Increase in Britain’s Nuclear Warheads
The most important news for CND activists this week is the story that the government will today announce, as part of the Integrated Review of defence and foreign policy, that the cap on the number of nuclear warheads will be raised from the current 180 figure to 260, an increase of around 40%. Briefing for the news had started on Friday-the Guardian has the exclusive today. The move is the first time since the end of the Cold War that Britain will increase its nuclear arsenal. CND General Secretary is quoted in both the original Guardianpiece and in the paper’s morning briefing.
As Jonathan Beale at the BBC points out, the Dreadnought class submarines coming online can carry eight Trident missiles, in comparison to the sixteen carried by the current Vanguard class-this raises questions about the increase in warheads.
The Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has this morning appeared on seven television and radio programmes to make the case for the increase in warheads.
This comes as the Labour Shadow Defence Secretary yesterday criticised the government in the House of Commons for what he said was ‘detailed briefings…to the press’ on significant upcoming policy changes prior to their announcement in Parliament.
Anti-war
Integrated Review
The increase in the number of nuclear warheads forms only one (albeit extremely worrying) part of the government’s Integrated Review, which Boris Johnson will set out in Parliament today. According to Deborah Haynes at Sky News, the Review will state that Russia is ‘an active threat’ to UK security, whilst the rise of China is described as a ‘systemic challenge’. It would appear that the Review also broadens the definition of ‘security’, setting out that climate change and ‘preserving biodiversity’ as the UK’s number one international priority in the next decade.
Labour appeared to criticise elements of the Review from a hawkish perspective, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy saying: ‘The government says Russia is the No. 1 threat to our security but it has refused to implement any of the recommendations of the Russia report, damaged relations with our NATO partners in Europe and its mismanagement of the defence budget has undermined the foundations of our defences.’
Dominic Raab told Sky News this morning ‘If we want to be a leader of the world we need to work with China’, which some will interpret as a shot across the bow of the China Research Group of Tory MPs and which suggest there is a degree of complexity to the mooted China strategy contained within the Review.
Cristina Gallardo at POLITICO has a piece on the political rationales informing the Review, with its declaration that the UK will have ‘a foreign policy of increased international activism’. The strategy component of the Review, authored by the historian and defence intellectual John Bew, provides a restatement of standard Atlanticist foreign policy whilst also marking a renewed focus on relations with India.
With best wishes,
Michael Muir
Press and Communications Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament