Support for people’s nuclear disarmament is growing, 4-5,000 on 24th January at Parliament. Burghfield Lockdown is the next large public action on 2nd March 2015 at and around AWE Burghfield near Reading. Please read on for info & put the date in your diaries.

Trident protest: activists gathered in Whitehall on 24th January 2015 for the Wrap Up Trident event

On Monday 2nd March 2015 roads in and out of the UK’s nuclear bomb factory, AWE Burghfield will be closed - blockaded by people.

The length of the closure is unknown. This blockade of Burghfield has been arranged by citizens from all over the UK and further afield who are concerned that the UK’s nuclear weapons system Trident will be renewed by the next government, in the face of worldwide warnings about the humanitarian, environmental, economic, security and legal issues surrounding these strategically useless and outdated WMD - Weapons of Mass Destruction.

At home in the UK, government cuts to essential services are going to get deeper and more damaging throughout the coming years to the tune of billions, impacting on health, housing, emergency services, education, local services and welfare - particularly for the elderly and disabled to list but a few. We can expect queues outside foodbanks to get longer, more illness to go untreated and society to beakdown further as more people fall below a survivable standard of living. And whilst government is telling us this is all for our own good it is taking billions from us, against our will, to give to the manufacturers of nuclear WMD, which can never be legally used.

This winter’s A&E crisis in hospitals has highlighted that Care for elderly in state of ‘calamitous decline’ amid £1bn of austerity cuts. Government has caused this calamitous decline by witholding just 1% of its nuclear weapons budget from the elderly. So much suffering and trauma for the elderly, their families and the NHS staff trying to care………so government can raise just 1% of the cost of the unusable weaponry it wants - and we don’t. This is a pattern that’s being repeated across society. And enough is enough.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board recently reset the hands on the Doomsday Clock to ‘Three minutes to midnight’, saying

“In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” It adds, “We also implore the citizens of the world to demand action from their leaders. The threat looms over all of humanity. Humanity needs to respond now, while there is still time.”

Politicians ignore us when we write and tell them not to spend our money on Trident……….so now we must tell them in a way they will understand. During 2015 the Ministry of Defence is expected to award more contracts to companies preparing the way for new nuclear weapons. By 2016 when final agreement on Trident renewal is due to be made, so much of our money will have been thrown at new nuclear weapons already, government will say it has to go ahead with the full procurement of new nukes. Now is our last chance to stop them and make them spend our money on critical services that people need to survive.

Thousands of people surrounded the Ministry of Defence HQ in London on Saturday 24th January, taking the message out on the streets with the Wrap Up Trident event. A wonderful turnout spelled out that we want ‘NHS not Trident’, ‘Homes not Trident’, ‘Cut War not Welfare’, ‘Jobs not Trident’, ‘Climate not Trident’, and hundreds more, with some great media coverage. More on the Wrap Up Trident event on the Action AWE website, here!

Burghfield Lockdown has been timed to launch Act, Speak, Vote > Disarm; a month of continuous Direct Action against nuclear weapons through the month of March in the lead up to the UK’s next General Election, expected in May 2015. You can find lots of ideas for a range of action to take, here. If you’d like to find other people to join you or get involved with actions already planned please email us at: [email protected]. If you’re intending to take action that can be public and you’d like others to know or get involved please email details here: Action AWE admin so details of your action can be announced on the Action AWE website.

Full information about Burghfield Lockdown can be found at www.actionawe.org/burghfieldlockdown. Food & drink will be available, music from Seize the Day and other street bands and choirs will be on site. Various religious groups will be joining us including Quakers, Catholics & Buddhists. Veterans for Peace will be present & several antimilitarist groups from Europe are attending along with groups from Scotland, Wales and England.

The Burghfield Lockdown briefing provides all the practical information you might need. We need your help. Please forward this info far and wide so as many people as possible see it and can join us, either on the 2nd March, in the days/weeks following, or both.

Contact us: on 0845 4588 362 or email [email protected]

Thank you!,

Action AWE.