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After the Trident vote:
what now?
Nuala Young
Oxford people campaigned on
all fronts against a dangerous,
unnecessary and horrifically
expensive Trident replacement.
Hundreds of Oxfordshire people,
some of them more than once,
contributed to the 365 day
blockade of Faslane, the nuclear
base in Scotland.
Oxford people joined the monthly
Block the Builder blockades at
Aldermaston, where they build
Britain's bombs.
The Oxford for Peace group
leafleted on new nuclear
weapons many times on the Friday leafleting sessions. Two
coaches went up to what was in
fact a very big demonstration in
London, much played down by
police and media.
Successful lobbying
Elise Benjamin and I, on the
Oxford Council front, persuaded
the Council to pass our resolution asking our two Oxford MPs
to demand a debate and to vote
against a new nuclear weapon
system.
Andrew Smith MP seemed to
be wavering slightly earlier on
in the letter writing campaign
and physical lobbying, but by
the end, so many people had
lobbied him that he did in fact
vote against, as did our other
MP Lib Dem, Evan Harris.
Andrew did say to me many
years ago that he could only act
against nuclear weapons if he
felt sure that the "man on the
street" was against them. So now
he may well have been convinced that, in his constituency
at least, this was the case.
Where was London "man"
however? On the day of the
vote, the CND presence was not
at all impressive. We had all
assumed that London people
would be massing in Parliament
Square, but at least we did have
a good contingent from Oxford
with peace flags and banners.
A new visible campaign
So what now? The contracts
have not been signed on the new
system. The "man and woman
on the street" needs to become
politicised again and more visible all over the country as the
Labour Party becomes less secure
in the polls and might even
reconsider its priorities.
We need a new campaign, visible and pithy, informative in a
brief but effective way.
To start in a small way we
here in Oxford need to disseminate hundreds of car stickers so
that those who travel in Oxford
and further afield can carry a
bright "No More Nuclear
Weapons" message.
We need a new poster campaign like the ones we designed
in Oxford in the 1980s that
achieved national distribution
and fame. Any artists or designers out there?
Our posters need to be clever
and informative comparing for
example just the initial cost of
Trident with the extra 6,000
nurses and 6,000 teachers we
could have for 10 years for the
same money.
Contact Oxford CND if you
would like to help in poster
design or would like to have car
stickers or posters for cars or
front windows. We need to show
that this insanity must not be
allowed to go ahead.
Nuala Young is a Green councillor
on Oxford council. This article first
appeared in Oxford CND News.
Contact: Oxford CND, 38 Yarnells
Hill, OX2 9BE or email
nualayoung@hotmail.com
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