Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre

The British Government has deliberately postponed the signing of the contract to design the next generation of Trident missiles until after the 2010 Review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) next April.
Only in June we received a formal letter from the Ministry of Defence re-iterating the government's view that Trident has to be updated in case, in 20-40 years time, an unspecified country should come to hate us. Only last month we replied that no recent Minister had been able to find a single strategic problem enumerated in Defence White Papers that was solved by Britain's possession of a nuclear deterrent.
Be that as it may, the British Government approaches the 2010 Review of the NPT
-- calling on all States that have not already done so to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
-- pressing for a Treaty to cut off the production of fissile material
(As you will know from our Conference last April at the Scottish Parliament, Russia stopped production of fissile material ten years ago)
-- welcoming the Russia-US agreement to continue bilateral decommissioning of their nuclear weapons
-- possessing 'only ' 160 Trident nuclear missiles which are not aimed and need several hours work before they can be fired.
In January/February at the UN Disarmament discussions in New York, Foreign Minister after Foreign Minister called for a programme of comprehensive disarmament.
In postponing the signing of the contract to design an updated Trident system, our Government is essentially demonstrating its willingness to work with any country to build a safer world in which no-one needs weapons of mass destruction (And, YES, we have told UNA-IRAN about this and we hope very much that the iranian Government understands).
Article VI of the NPT states: " Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control ".
In August our Convenor, Dr. Gari Donn JP., goes to the AGM of the World Federation of UNAs to lead the discussion on disarmament. She will meet Ban Ki Moon.
Maybe, just maybe, we are building a better world.

Alec Gaines