Crunch time for Trident

The arguments for scrapping Trident get stronger day by day. And voices are now being raised from some surprising sources.

Retired senior military personnel, lead articles in conservative papers including the Daily Mail and The Times and ex-ministers such as Charles Clarke have called for a halt to the Trident replacement programme.

There is growing support across the world for a global ban on nuclear weapons which now has support from powerful figures like UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon and US President Barack Obama.

In the two years since the Blair government pushed through the decision to replace Trident, the world has changed faster and more dramatically than any of us imagined.

And perhaps most important of all the changes is the deepening economic crisis facing Britain's economy.

British taxpayers are shelling out £2 billion a year on Trident - twice as much as five years ago.

But spending on Trident will not be a stimulus to the British economy at a time of recession.

The main spending will come after 2012, long after the recession is forecasted to end and at a time when public spending will be under severe pressure as the government tries to balance the books following the massive bank bail-outs.

Trident replacement will be a long-term drain on our economy which will come at the expense of health, education and housing.

What is the government reaction to all this?

David Miliband and Gordon Brown have said they support the campaign for global nuclear disarmament but they are determined to push ahead with the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons anyway.

Their actions speak louder than their fine words.

It is madness to commit billions to new nuclear weapons only to negotiate them away a few years later.

If the government is serious about nuclear disarmament, it must halt the nuclear programme immediately.

The recent crash of nuclear submarines in the Atlantic shows the huge dangers in simply possessing and deploying these weapons in peacetime.

In Scotland, a clear majority of people support disarmament. Scots trade unions and churches are overwhelmingly against Trident. Most Scottish MPs voted against it and so also did the Scottish Parliament, by 71 votes to 16.

The STUC, Scottish CND and the churches are currently working with the Scottish government to develop policy on Trident.

In one recent piece of work, the STUC and Scottish CND produced an updated report called Trident, Jobs and Scotland's Economy.

This showed that, if Trident was cancelled, fewer than 1,600 jobs would be lost in Scotland and even these would be minimised if Trident was phased out early.

For the same money, more than 3,000 new jobs could be created and we could invest in renewable energy.

The government will have to make decisions in September about whether to go ahead with the next stage of the Trident replacement programme - the Initial Gate.

Despite pledges to the contrary, this will probably be taken by Cabinet without a parliamentary debate. Press reports suggest that the government may be wobbling on Trident, but there is no room for complacency.

Some 116 MPs have already signed an early day motion calling for a full parliamentary debate before any further decisions on Trident are taken.

Write to your MP asking him or her to sign it and come along to the Scotland's For Peace march and rally in Glasgow on June 20 to add your voice and sing out for peace. Let's make it crunch time for Trident.

Alan Mackinnon is chairman of Scottish CND.