Author: LabourCND

Labour CND has issued the following statement in response to Keir Starmer’s visit to Barrow, Friday 12 April

Keir Starmer used a visit to Barrow-in-Furness on 12 April to announce Labour’s ‘unshakeable absolute total’ commitment to Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system, and Labour’s plan to raise military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product under a Labour government which means billions of pounds more public funds allocated to the military budget.¹

Starmer should be under no illusions. He does not speak for the majority of Labour Party members, however, or even the public on these issues. Nor does this allay Tory voter fears that Labour is a safe pair of hands when it comes to defence.²

Trident is the ‘bedrock of Labour’s plan to keep Britain safe’, he said. The UK’s ‘nuclear deterrent’ was ‘maintained on behalf of NATO’. This was ‘a generational, multi-decade commitment’ from a Starmer government.

International tensions are growing, and with them the risk of nuclear confrontation. Politicians may believe Trident guarantees us a place at the top table. But the assurance of Labour and Tories alike that it brings safety for people in Britain is a cruel illusion. Meanwhile UK domestic politics continues to ignore the true international situation which is that Britain has not signed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which came into force in 2021.

Politicians may believe Trident guarantees us a place at the top table. But the assurance of Labour and Tories alike that it brings safety for people in Britain is a cruel illusion.

The possession of a nuclear weapons system makes the UK a target. The decision to site United States nuclear weapons on British soil – taken without public or even parliamentary debate – puts us on the front line of any nuclear attack.

Britain’s nuclear weapons system is not independent as Starmer claims. Trident is dependent on US technology and know-how.

Even sections of the military recognise that the money spent on Trident would be better deployed elsewhere, arguing for increases in areas of conventional defence.

Disregarding these and many other arguments against nuclear weapons, in a statement shot through with jingoism, Starmer has made three commitments which he argues will defend the UK economy and prioritise British jobs and skills:

• to build all four new Dreadnought nuclear submarines in the UK, at Barrow-in-Furness;
• to maintain Britain’s continuous at sea nuclear deterrent; and
• to deliver all future upgrades needed to properly equip Trident.
  
  A commitment to increase the military budget means cuts elsewhere in government investment and public spending. Figures released by the Treasury as part of the Spring Budget showed that Core Military Spending was £54.2 billion pounds for the year ending March 2024, around 2.3% of GDP.³ How else will a Labour government, committed to fiscal responsibility as well as lowering taxes, find the extra resources to fund Starmer’s commitment to increase the military budget? It will come at the expense of the NHS, education, and the ability to address child poverty or to abolish the two-child cap on child benefits. It will also come at the expense of dealing with the human security threat of climate change.Labour CND says the next Labour government should not allow its priorities to be dictated by the Conservative Party and their establishment friends. We need is a radical rethink about spending priorities and about British foreign policy.The incoming Labour government will face a range of challenges. None of them will be solved by nuclear weapons or spending ever more money on the military.

1. Keir Starmer, My commitment to the UK’s nuclear deterrent is Unshakeable Absolute Total, Daily Mail exclusive, 11 April 2024 athttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13298999/Keir-Starmer-vows-Britains-nuclear-deterrent-safe-hands-promises-unshakeable-commitment- Trident-new-generation-nuclear-submarines-built-UK.htm ↩︎
2. See for example the hundreds of reader comments in response to the above, which have appeared within hours of the article being posted online. ↩︎
3. Dr Stuart Parkinson, Co-Chair GCOMS-UK (UK branch of the Global Campaign on Military Spending) and Executive Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, Spring Budget 24: Military Spending Continues to Grow at the Expense of Climate Funds and Overseas Aid, at https://demilitarize.org.uk/spring-budget-24-military-spending-continues-to-grow-at-the-expense-of-climate-funds-and-overseas-aid/ ↩︎

Labour CND is extremely concerned to read the letter recently sent to Unite officers, organisers, and staff by General Secretary Sharon Graham and Chair Andy Green, which is now circulating in the public domain.  

The GS and Chair alert recipients to ‘a number of extremely troubling actions being undertaken by a tiny minority of individuals, inside and outside of our union… a small number [of whom] are linked to groups who want us to make decisions detrimental to our membership and their jobs.’

We reproduce below that section of the letter which relates to Palestine – described by Graham and Geen as one of their ‘key areas’ of concern – together with Labour CND’s statement.

LABOUR CND STATEMENT

Labour CND is aware that, since 2020, the Labour Party leadership has sought to prevent CLPs and individual members discussing important areas of policy on pain of suspension or expulsion. These include what Keir Starmer has described as Labour’s ‘unshakeable commitment’ to NATO, Labour’s support for the Tory government’s position on the war in Ukraine, and (more recently but less successfully) Israel’s war on Gaza.

We are alarmed that Unite, a Labour affiliated union, shows signs of moving in the same direction. This raises serious questions about the conduct of legitimate, democratic debate about UK defence policy.

Graham and Green say there is ‘no contradiction for a trade union to hold a position of solidarity with Palestinian workers, while at the same time refusing to support campaigns that target our members workplaces without their support’.  Labour CND says solidarity is not just a sentiment, but something that is demonstrated in action. Whether in Palestine or elsewhere, it cannot be acceptable to protect the interests of workers in UK arms industries while thousands are being slaughter by the products of their labour.

Labour CND believes that in a democracy campaigners have the right to target workplaces that are employed in making weapons of mass destruction which render the world less safe. This does not and should not include attacks on individual workers. It does include weapons that will be used to further genocide in Gaza; and those used by NATO, which is a nuclear first-strike military alliance, as well as projects such as AUKUS. Labour Party conference 2021 voted to oppose AUKUS with the support of Unite the Union.

The threat of nuclear war has never been greater. Labour CND believes the international labour movement, including trade unions in Britain, should be working to uphold the principles of international solidarity, justice and peace, including support for a world free of weapons of mass destruction.

That is why we have consistently argued the need for a real defence diversification strategy so workers are protected and able to transition to alternative work. We support the role of trade unions to play a leading part in that process.

Protecting members interests does not stop at pay or terms and conditions. It is about putting forward alternatives, to ensure workers can apply their skills for socially and ecologically useful work as in the tradition of the former Lucas Aerospace workers in the 1970s.

Defence policy, the UK’s support for NATO, and the AUKUS project cannot be decided on the basis of how they impact trade union members in the arms industry alone. They have wider social, economic, and political implications. They should be part of a healthy debate within the labour movement, just like education, welfare, the health service, climate change, and so forth.

This last point gets to the crux of Labour CND’s concern. We work actively within the labour movement to advocate for a nuclear free world, and opposition to NATO and the AUKUS project.

Trade union members have a right to be informed, engage in debate, and take up these issues through the democratic structures of their union. That includes policies to address the most challenging issues of our times such as climate change, inequality and the cost-of-living crisis.

Any suggestion that groups such as ours, which include many trade union members, should be prevented from building support for our position is undemocratic, and carries undertones of bans such as those we are witnessing in the Labour Party.

The predecessors of Unite the Union have a long and strong tradition of supporting peace and  nuclear disarmament, and putting forward defence diversification alternatives like the report of May 2015. Defence Diversification Revisited argued for a Defence Diversification Agency ‘with teeth’.

That argument remains valid today. Labour CND is open to discussing with Unite how we can work in unity within our movement and the Labour Party to achieve this.

Extract on Palestine from Unite letter

Of all the issues that have been used in these attacks, probably the most abhorrent is the attempted weaponisation of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.

Unite, through the General Secretary and the Chair of the Union and the Executive Council, was the first major union to publicly and unambiguously call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We were very clear. We have watched on with horror the bombardment and destruction of Gaza, and the unbearable terror, suffering and death of its innocent civilians. We have been unequivocal that the deliberate killing of civilians, hostage-taking and collective punishment are war crimes and should be identified as such.

Unite has also donated £50,000 to Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders specifically to help the many victims of this horrific conflict. Most recently the General Secretary has written to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) offering our solidarity after the horrific bombing of their Gaza headquarters which, alongside providing services to workers, was also functioning as a kindergarten and bakery.

However, we cannot and will not endorse any organisation which decides unilaterally and without any discussion (let alone agreement) with the workers themselves, to support the targeting of our members’ workplaces or their jobs. To be clear, this will not happen. No outside body, no matter what their political position, will be allowed to dictate terms to our Union and our members.

It is important to highlight here that it is a core principle of Unite that as a trade union the ‘first claim’ on our priorities is always the protection and advancement of our members’ interests at work. It is very simple. Unite cannot and never will advocate or support any course of action which is counter to that principle. We are a trade union, not a political party or single-issue campaign group.

Therefore, there is no contradiction for a trade union to hold a position of solidarity with Palestinian workers, while at the same time refusing to support campaigns that target our members’ workplaces without their support. Similarly, we cannot be expected to affiliate to organisations that actively work against our members and their jobs.

Examples include groups that look to build networks inside trade unions to undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of NATO and AUKUS. Whatever anyone may think personally about those objectives is irrelevant. We are a trade union with thousands of members employed in the defence industry. It is the views of affected members that take precedence in a trade union. That will not change and nor should it. Unite members have recently been attacked directly, been spat at and called “child killers”.* We cannot and will not endorse this…..

* Labour CND has no evidence that Unite members have been attacked in this way. We include the sentence for the sake of completeness.

Top marks to Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana who was quick off the mark in responding to Israel’s refusal to implement the UN Security Resolution calling for a ceasefire. She has successfully coordinated a cross party letter signed by a 134 MPs and Lords calling on the government to ‘immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel’. In this context, the 134 say, busines as usual for arms exports to Israel is totally unacceptable.

Earlier this month, Richard Burgon MP wrote to the Foreign Secretary demanding an investigation into whether UK-supplied military equipment was used in the bombing of British doctors volunteering in Gaza.