Parliamentarians from the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), the Dutch Socialist Party, the Greens and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party were arrested on January 8 following a protest at the Faslane nuclear submarine base on the River Clyde. The protest was organised by Faslane 365, which is promoting a year-round blockade of the base.
Faslane houses Britain's arsenal of Trident nuclear weapons of mass destruction, each of which costs £16.8 million (US$32.9 million) and has a destructive capacity 18 times greater than the US nuclear bomb that killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima at the end of World War II. The British parliament is due to debate in March whether to replace Trident with a new generation of nuclear weapons. With both Prime Minister Tony Blair and his likely successor, Gordon Brown, backing the plan, the upgrade will almost certainly go ahead at an estimated cost of £25 billion.
Among those arrested were SSP Members of the Scottish Parliament Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Frances Curran. Responding to allegations that the protest was wasting police time, Kane told the January 8 BBC News: "It's important to take a stand here. We are not the ones wasting police time here, it is the nuclear weapons on the Clyde that are wasting everyone's time and everyone's money."
Also arrested were Plaid Cymru deputy president Jill Evans, who is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). Evans told the January 9 Morning Star: "We have taken part in the blockade today to reflect the views of the majority of people in Wales who oppose Trident." Another MEP, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, told the Star: "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."
The BBC reported that Dutch Socialist MEP Krista Van Velzen was also arrested.
No Scottish Labour Party elected representatives were reported to have participated in the protest. Labour MSP Jackie Baillie told the BBC: "It is in fact Westminster that make the decision. While I'm thankful we live in a democracy, and people have the right to protest, I do wish they would focus on those who are making the decision — those in the House of Commons."
In his speech at the protest, SSP national convener Colin Fox blasted Labour's stance: "It is dishonest to hide behind the excuse that this is a Westminster issue — this is not a Westminster issue, this is an issue for all humanity. And this is certainly an issue for the Holyrood Parliament, one which it is morally and politically obliged to take a stand on".
[Visit http://www.faslane365.org>.]