by Rae Street

As many of you know the UK’s fleet of 4 Trident nuclear armed submarines are ‘integrated’ into NATO. Just to remind you of the horrors of Trident. Each submarine can carry up to 8 missiles; each missile can carry up to 5 warheads, with each warhead having 8 times the killing power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One submarine patrols the seas at all times and, as they have a huge range, could be under the South China Sea as I write. It is not as the UK government claims ‘independent’; it is US through and through. The UK ‘lease purchases’ the missiles from the United States. Based at Faslane in Scotland, Trident was once described as the ‘US forward fleet in Europe’. The UK government, in its unwisdom, voted to replace Trident at a cost of £205 billion.

Here is the letter I had published in the UK national newspaper, the Guardian, on 9th July.

Dear Editor,

As Polly Toynbee points out so many sectors are going to need an injection of funds. She is suggesting quite rightly a windfall tax on all wealth. There is also another area where money could be re-drected. The replacement of Trident is estimated if all costs are taken into account to be £205 billion. The Trident nuclear armed submarines cannot keep us safe from terrorists, from cyber attacks or, as we now see, a pandemic. Trident replacement should be cancelled which, even allowing for money for decommissioning, would free up money for health, education and welfare.

Yours faithfully,
Rae Street
The Editor,
The Guardian