Scotland

Early on 11 July, a military convoy carrying nuclear warheads was stopped for one hour near Loch Lomond by protesters from Faslane Peace Camp. One person climbed on top of a nuclear transporter; four were arrested.

The 20-vehicle convoy, with four special transporter lorries to carry 100-kiloton nuclear warheads, had driven through the centre of Glasgow shortly after midnight.

The convoy, from AWE Burghfield to the Coulport nuclear store, was tracked by Nukewatch and…

Weekly vigil, 14 May, North Gate of the Trident submarine base at Faslane, Scotland. A message from Faslane Peace Camp: ‘It’s now well into spring and the pace is picking up as we get closer to September’s crucial vote on Scottish independence. Leaving to one side our plans for clandestine activities, we can announce that over the weekend of 13-15 June, the camp will be celebrating its 32nd birthday. Come stay the whole weekend for direct action workshops, vegan food and entertainment. That…

Contrary to popular report (even among some peace activists), Faslane Peace Camp is still here and still opposing weapons of mass destruction, war and militarism. Things have been a little quiet over the winter but now spring is here and we’re ready for action.

Early on 19 March, I was arrested on board HMS Ambush inside Faslane naval base (which houses Britain’s Trident nucler missile submarines) along with fellow peace camper Jamie Watson.

We’d set off a couple of hours…

The connections between the UK’s Trident nuclear weapon system and the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014 are both fiendishly complex and absurdly simple

Here are a few of the complications. It is partly a tale of two governments that have their own referendum agendas but that are also highly sensitive to the potential effect on the referendum vote of positions they adopt publicly. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), conscious of the power of the old principle — ‘…

Faslane Peace Camp, May 2013. Photo: Camcorder Guerrillas

Newspapers across the world published articles indicating the camp would likely close, and activist groups across the country publicised our plight.

The final meeting held yesterday [14 May – eds] saw many individuals, including past and present residents, travel from all over the UK to offer their time and support to keep the camp running.

It has been widely agreed that it would be a bad move to close the camp…

For the last two years, there has been a small group of us rebuilding Faslane Peace Camp as a community of anti-nuclear action.

We came together with a shared vision that if we maintain the camp as a safe, alcohol- and drug-free space with regular actions and campaigning, we could create a strong, autonomous community active in the fight against Trident and the militarisation of the west coast of Scotland.

Part of our vision has been achieved in making the…

All gates into the base were blockaded for three hours on a Monday morning, from 7am to 10am. Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 83 and came from across Scotland, Wales and England.

Students, pensioners, environmentalists and activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties lay down in the entrance to the base and locked themselves together with metal and plastic tubes, chains and ‘thumb-cuffs’ (handcuffs for thumbs). They demanded the UK disarm the Trident weapons…

A vigil on The Mound, Edinburgh Photo: Stop Trident

The event has been called by a wide coalition of groups active against nuclear weapons and NATO, and pro-independence campaigns, including Scottish CND, Trident Ploughshares, Stop the War Coalition, Faslane Peace Camp, the Scottish Green Party and the Radical Independence Campaign. In recent weeks, many more have added their names to the list of supporters, with both the Scottish Trade Unions Council and the…

On this day, the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, our intention is to use our bodies to peacefully halt the daily business of preparing for nuclear war. To shut down the UK’s most expensive military spending operation!

Our hope is that this will be the beginning of a new wave of anti-Trident activism in Scotland, a new wave that will see new faces hold hands and lay down on the road with those who’ve been doing this for decades. A new wave that we hope will bring…

Last week I received an email from a friend in England who seemed amazed that independence issues like the forced removal of Trident and NATO membership were getting quite radical coverage in the Scottish media. Their surprise was framed in a way that suggested few people south of the border are fully aware of the scale of the Scottish independence debate and the potential it has to force nuclear disarmament on the UK.

There is no doubt that independence is a subversive demand that…

Scotland's first minister Alex Salmond (of the Scottish Nationalist Party, SNP) has announced that if Scots vote for independence in the 2014 referendum, the nation's new constitution would explicitly outlaw nuclear weapons.

The proposal was announced on 7 October, a day after the pro-independence Scottish Green…

On 6 September, anti-nuclear protesters from Faslane Peace Camp delivered an emotive message to the 'next generation' of nuclear weapons engineers at a nuclear weapons seminar in a hotel in Clydebank.

The 'Introduction to Nuclear Defence' seminar, held in Beardmore Hotel Clydebank, invited 'young delegates' for two days of seminars and presentations on military nuclear topics from 'leading industry figures'. The programme, only open to UK passport holders subject to stringent security…

Trident Ploughshares affinity group 'Rise Up Singing' organised two days of tuneful protest at (and a blockade of) the Faslane nuclear submarine base on 16-17 September.

There was a busy day of workshops, singing practice and banner-making on 15 September.

The next day, more than 50 people headed to Faslane to raise their voices in protest against the Trident submarines housed there.

Two visitors from Bhopal described their campaign for justice for the…

On 14 July, 45 people invaded Scottish Coal’s Mainshill open-cast coal site near Douglas, South Lanarkshire, and shut it down for the day. Machines including a ‘prime mover’ were occupied and all work was stopped completely.

The occupation was part of an action camp held in Douglas Valley in the Southern Uplands from 12-18 July. Other actions included blockading the entrance of Broken Cross open-cast coal site and ‘open-casting’ the lawn belonging to Lord Home, who makes…

A diverse group of Scottish organisations and individuals has set up a coalition to resist the notion that an independent Scotland should become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has long held the position that it would insist on the removal of Trident if Scotland should achieve independence and that a future Scotland would not be a member of NATO. While the SNP says it will remain firm in opposing Trident, the SNP leadership…