The colossal waste that is Trident

Austerity is having disastrous consequences, here in Britain and across Europe. Cyprus is only the latest example.

But Chancellor George Osborne is still following the same disastrous policies. This week's Budget came as no surprise - yet another £2.5 billion in cuts.

He's digging us even further into an economic hole and ordinary people are paying the price.

The virulence of the government's economic attacks knows no bounds - Atos, workfare, the bedroom tax, punitive policies against the most vulnerable in society.

Yet at the same time the government spends £3bn a year on nuclear weapons and plans to spend over £100bn on building and maintaining a replacement for Trident, Britain's nuclear weapons system.

Why is it that the government says there is no money for social services and supporting the welfare of the most vulnerable in society when it can find endless money for nuclear weapons, wars and military interventions?

I recall that millions of pounds were suddenly found for missiles to attack Libya two years ago, at the same time as we were told there was no money for people's actual needs.

Of course the reality is that austerity policies are designed to dismantle the welfare state, bring down wages and fully marketise the economy, destroying all the social and economic gains of ordinary people since the second world war. So from the government point of view the policies are working.

There is an increasing understanding of the government's real agenda and as a result, opposition is mounting and alternatives are being posed.

Scrapping Trident and opposing its replacement are part of the alternative. With the £100bn saved we could invest in building 30,000 new homes every year, creating 60,000 jobs.

We could quadruple our annual investment in renewable energy.

Or we could fully fund all A&E services in hospitals across Britain and Northern Ireland for the next 40 years.

Among many protests last weekend, the demonstration to save the Whittington Hospital in Islington, a neighbour to the CND office, was one event where the anti-Trident message received an enthusiastic response.

So much could be achieved with these billions. Why would we want to spend it on weapons of mass destruction?

The reality is that we don't. It may have been a long time coming, but those of us opposed to nukes are no longer the minority.

We speak for the majority - against the immorality of indiscriminate killing, against the criminal waste of national resources and against a monstrous vanity project based on an unworthy sense of Britain's "status" in the world.

Polls show that ordinary people have turned against Trident and want to see it scrapped. Spending over £100bn on weapons of mass destruction does not strike most people as a good use of taxpayers' money when you think about the obscenity of the bedroom tax or the Atos onslaught on disabled people.

More trade unions have affiliated to CND, but support now also comes from unexpected quarters.

Senior military figures describe it as useless. Previously pro-nuclear politicians are speaking out.

Former Tory defence secretary Michael Portillo describes it as "completely past its sell-by date." And recently Des Browne, the Labour ex-defence secretary who pushed Trident replacement through Parliament in 2007, says that Trident is "neither strategically sound nor economically viable." In all parties, attitudes are changing.

This week we heard that Labour may finally be shifting on nuclear weapons.

Reports indicate that Ed Miliband will call for Trident to be scaled back - maybe fewer submarines and an end to round-the-clock patrols.

To those who follow the issue closely this will not be a huge surprise. During the Labour leadership contest in 2010, when his brother took a gung-ho pro-nuclear stance, Ed Miliband said Trident should be part of a strategic defence review. This, at least, indicated a willingness to rethink a policy made for the cold war.

Of course a reduced nuclear arsenal is not acceptable either, but this is the start of a shift in policy. In the labour and progressive movements we have to press the Labour Party to abandon nuclear weapons altogether.

We know that there are very many in Labour, both in the parliamentary party and the constituencies, who are fierce opponents of these weapons of mass destruction.

Labour is going through its National Policy Forum process, working towards its new manifesto.

Those active in the Labour Party or its affiliated trade unions need to make our voices heard. With the decision on whether or not to replace Trident due in 2016 - postponed from 2012 because of differences between the coalition partners - Trident will again be a general election issue in 2015. Let's make it clear to all candidates that they won't get our votes if they back Trident and its replacement.

We are closer to nuclear disarmament than we have ever been. Please help us make it sooner rather than later.

Join us at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston on Easter Monday, April 1, as we say: Time to Scrap Trident - Stop Fooling with Nuclear Weapons.

• Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. For more information see: www.cnduk.org/nukefools
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