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| Nottingham election candidates arrested at anti-nuclear demo. |
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3 Green Party candidates for Nottingham's forthcoming council elections spent 30 hours in police custody over the weekend after they were arrested during a peaceful demonstration against the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons arsenal. A group of people from various organisations across Nottingham managed to block the North gate of the base for four hours as part of the Faslane 365 campaign. The aims of the national campaign is to form a continuous peaceful blockade of the Trident base at Faslane from 1st October 2006 to 30th September 2007. So far the campaign has seen 100 days of blockades and 696 arrests.
              Members of The Nottingham Young Greens: Andy Black, Andy Birkby and Jacob Vincent were arrested and charged for breaching the peace when they were sitting in the road blocking the entrance to the Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane, Scotland. They are now on their way back to Nottingham after being released at 5.30pm today. Andy Birkby, spokesperson for Nottingham's Young Green Party said, “It is ironic that I have been arrested for breaching the peace when I am peacefully trying to draw attention to the immoral, illegal and counterproductive breach of the peace which is Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system." He went on to say, "In the face of strong parliamentary and public opposition, last month Tony Blair said he wanted to replace Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Although he recommended a reduction from 200 warheads to about 160 Trident they could still deliver far more destruction than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima which killed 200,000 people. The UK Government can not claim that they want to protect the planet from terrorism and then make preparations to blow it up at the same time". "The Green Party believe it is completely hypocritical. How can we lecture countries like Iran on international law designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons when we are prepared to so blithely ignore it ourselves? Building new nuclear weapons is against international law, and politically sends a clear message to other countries that they also need them. Not only will it undermine international disarmament treaties, it comes with a massive £76bn price tag, diverting funds away from other issues. Last week alone we learnt that CO2 in the U.K is at a 10 year high. While the Blair government has made it clear they want to commit the UK to nuclear weapons for the next 50 years, scientists and politicians agree that climate change is by far the greatest threat that the world faces."
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