And this is a continuing problem: in recent weeks we have seen further attempts. The left has been successful in the regional elections in Venezuela but the US refuses to recognise the left’s victory. Instead Venezuela is suffering from a punishing raft of sanctions, imposed by Trump and maintained by President Biden. The sanctions, which amount to a blockade, are designed to inflict such damage on the economy that the people will be amenable to ‘regime change’. Such a result would be enormously damaging for the people of Venezuela, their self-determination and progress.

And US attempts to undermine and destroy Cuba continue. Recently the US has tried to mobilise demonstrations against the government in Cuba in an attempt to foment regime change. These have met with little support. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has so far left all the Trump-era sanctions in place. These powerful sanctions coupled with Covid have halved foreign currency inflows over the last two years, leading to shortages of basic goods with the goal of generating discontent.

But nevertheless Cuba’s anti-covid work goes from strength to strength. More than 81 percent of Cuba’s population of 11 million is fully vaccinated, and researchers are upgrading the Cuban vaccine to ensure protection against the new Omicron variant. This is the reality of the Cuban system that the US wishes to destroy – health security for its people, not to mention the health solidarity that we have seen Cuba extend to other countries.

Given the amount of effort that the US puts into destabilising socialist governments and progressive advance in Latin America, it is not surprising that at times there have been victories which have been reversed or overthrown. But what we see is that the reversal is never accepted, whether in Bolivia or most recently Honduras, where the people have organised and fought back until victory. Bolivia recently celebrated the first anniversary of reversing the coup which took place against Evo Morales in 2019. The 2020 election saw a landslide victory for the MAS candidate after a year of brutal repression and neoliberal hardship. The process has taken longer in Honduras, but the coup in 2009 against Manuel Zelaya has now been reversed with the recent glorious victory of Castro, after 12 terrible years of neo-liberalism. Now Honduras will begin the process of building a democratic socialist society.

Of course there are many other examples across Latin America of imperialist intervention, and the common theme over decades has been western determination to introduce neoliberal economic policies to allow unfettered exploitation of the people and their economic resources. Indeed we can say that Latin America has been a testbed for neoliberal policies which have for decades been the main weapon for destroying socialism and for advancing US interests across the globe.

There has of course been repeated rejection of neoliberalism, Argentina is a powerful case that comes to mind, but when the US fails to impose its economic policy prescriptions it resorts to other means. Military intervention and war is one such method, but in Latin America the US has perfected a whole range of methods, from political intervention in elections, to lawfare and its use to conduct coups against legitimately elected representatives of the people.

Struggles on this front still continue – in Ecuador, for example, with the lawfare coup against Correa, but the left is still a huge force and I have no doubt that it will recover and prevail.

Brazil’s election next year is of the utmost importance globally. At the minute it is looking like Lula versus Bolsonaro and the US will do everything it can to support Bolsonaro. Lula is ahead and we must do everything possible to support his re-election. His victory will change geopolitics significantly for the better – whether it’s climate change, or increasing multipolarity. Brazil is an economic power house and it can once again be a political power house for the left.

Many of us will have been directly involved in one of the great initiatives of the Brazilian Workers Party – the World Social Forum, founded in Porto Alegre and backed by the city’s PT government, twenty years ago. 12,000 people attended that first meeting from around the world, organising and discussing alternatives to neoliberalism, and for a globalisation from below. That was a moment of transformation not only for the movement internationally but for Brazil, leading eventually to the electoral victory of Lula. No wonder the Brazilian elite and its US allies worked to drive him out of politics, but those malign forces will be defeated.

It is that kind of international cooperation, that emerged from Porto Alegre, that we need to regain, to re-empower ourselves as an international movement. A fighting movement, like the movements in Latin America, that don’t lie down when faced with coups, lawfare, economic warfare, military intervention, but re-organise and win.

We must stand together with the forces of progress internationally, get ourselves united and organised to challenge our own ruling class and the imperialist role it plays across the world. There is nowhere better to look to for lessons, guidance and inspiration than to our comrades in Latin America.

This is the text of a speech delivered at the Latin America conference in London on 4th December, 2021

If anyone thought that talking of a ‘new cold war’ with China was overstating the case, the recently announced AUKUS military pact must make them think again. Surely timed to deflect notions of US weakness after its defeat in Afghanistan, this major new multifaceted defence agreement between the US, UK and Australia sees the latter firmly jump into the US camp and the former strengthen and renew its Pivot to Asia through unashamedly militaristic means. The UK is coat-tailing the US as usual, hoping to garner some jobs in nuclear reactor production, and trying yet another gambit to boost the ‘global Britain’ profile.

Just six months on from the publication of the government’s big overhaul of foreign and defence policy – the Integrated Review which included a 40% increase in the nuclear arsenal – this is the UK’s second significant provocation towards China, following on from the UK aircraft carrier’s tour to the South China Sea. Australia has the most to lose from this agreement – China is its biggest trading partner and up to recently Australia has avoided getting too sucked into US strategies against China. Earlier attempts during Bush’s presidency to build a ‘Quad’ against China with Australia, Japan and India, foundered when Kevin Rudd withdrew Australian support, but now Australia is back in the fold.

Billed by the signatories as ‘a landmark defence and security partnership’, it’s partly being sold as a values-driven agreement to support a peaceful rules-based international order (US/UK rhetoric for some time now even when the US was unilaterally withdrawing from fundamental pillars of said order); and its key military focus centres on ‘the development of joint capabilities and technology sharing’, deeper integration of security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains.

What this actually means is that the US and UK are going to collaborate with Australia to help provide them with nuclear-powered submarines. Bizarrely the joint governments’ statement suggests that this will ‘promote stability in the Indo-Pacific’; it looks more likely to massively ramp up tension in the region at a time when cooperation with China – in the run up to COP26 to deal with the climate emergency – should be top of the agenda. Not surprisingly, the Chinese authorities haven’t responded well. It’s also dealt a blow to Britain’s relations with France which already had a contract with Australia to provide them with 12 diesel/electric-powered subs to replace their ageing fleet. That contract has now been ripped up but in spite of comments about delays in production and escalating costs, this is not a military-industrial decision, it is a strategic one, fully entering the US orbit – and being granted access to rare nuclear reactor technology.

Nuclear – whether military or civilian – is always controversial and symbolic, and here it means Australian admission to the top level club; only six countries, all nuclear weapon states, have nuclear-powered subs. It is also an indication by the US of the priority it gives to this growing – fortunately still cold – conflict, and its determination to get Australia onside and keep it there. T he nuclear component of the subs lies in the fact they are powered by onboard nuclear reactors. They won’t have nuclear weapons – and the Australian PM Scott Morrison has been quick to insist that Australia will not be pursuing either nuclear weapons or civil nuclear capacity.

Beyond the strategic nightmare created by AUKUS there is much that is not yet clear. Will the Australians build the subs or buy them in? How will the highly enriched uranium necessary to fuel the reactors be provided? There is no doubt that the provision of reactors and the technology they require is the most significant factor here.

Reactor technology is highly prized and top secret, as the uranium used for the reactors is enriched to 95% – weapons grade. The US and UK cooperate on this under the terms of the Mutual Defence Agreement, the world’s most extensive nuclear sharing agreement which first came into force in 1958. Renewed by parliament every decade, the last time in 2014 allowed for greater cooperation on reactor technology. If the Australians were going to build the reactors themselves they would need US technology and expertise and a nuclear-sharing agreement with the US of their own. So the simplest solution would be to buy them in; Boris Johnson’s comments so far about jobs suggest he will try and get reactor orders for the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby. Maybe he will also try for the decommissioning contracts for the spent fuel that eventually needs disposing of. Presumably it will add to the nightmare build up of radioactive waste at the dangerously unsafe Sellafield complex in Cumbria. Highly enriched uranium is stored there but no safe long-term storage facility has yet been found.

Boris Johnson said in Parliament today that the AUKUS agreement did not contravene the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – that this is for nuclear power not nuclear weapons so the restrictions do not apply. But the fact is we are talking about providing weapons grade enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapons state to power military submarines undertaking provocative action in a very fraught area of the world.

The NPT does not stop the exchange of civil nuclear technology but it stipulates it must be ‘for peaceful purposes’. Sending war-fighting subs to potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific region is hardly that. This is yet another breach of international law by our government, hard on the heels of the nuclear arsenal increase. It’s time to stand up and oppose the government’s reckless and illegal foreign policy.

This article was first published here

Today the Taliban has re-entered Kabul, almost twenty years since the US-led intervention in 2001 drove it out. The US-trained Afghan army has melted away despite numerical superiority and a new Taliban government will no doubt emerge in short order.

The US-led war on Afghanistan has been an unmitigated failure. President Biden has conceded that after nearly 20 years of war it was clear that the US military could not transform Afghanistan into a modern, stable democracy. In fact, they created a corrupt puppet regime with negligible popular support. The truth is, the US should not have been there attempting regime change in the first place.

So let’s name the US/NATO departure from Afghanistan for what it is: a humiliating defeat after twenty years of war, regime change, occupation and brutality. According to the Brown University Costs of War study, this war has resulted in over 240,000 deaths, and countless more injured, displaced, suffering from mental health problems, and with lives blighted by poverty and deprivation. A relaxation of US rules governing air strikes in 2017 has led to a massive increase in civilian deaths in recent years, and unexploded ordinance continues to kill, injure and maim.

The monetary cost of the war has been phenomenal. The US alone has spent over $2.26 trillion to date, and that excludes future costs of interest payable on money borrowed to wage the war, as well as lifetime care for US veterans of this war.

And after all this expenditure of blood and treasure, Afghanistan is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Around 50% live in poverty and the poorest areas, largely rural, are those where the Taliban is strongest. The population needs clean water, electricity, infrastructure, yet the so-called aid money that has gone to Afghanistan has largely been used to train Afghan troops or been siphoned off by corrupt members of the Afghan elite.

One of the tragic human consequences has been the millions of people displaced or living as refugees outside of the country because of the violence and danger that they face. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that 2.7 million Afghans have already been displaced this year because of the violence, and warns of “a looming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan as the escalating conflict brings increased human suffering and civilian displacement”. The UK was complicit in this war, the UK helped create this humanitarian disaster and the UK must not send refugees back to Afghanistan. It is not a safe country to return to and will not be so for years, perhaps decades to come. The time has come to look at priorities – just a fraction of the money spent on military intervention in Afghanistan would make an enormous difference to Afghanistan and its future; reparations must be made, to support growth, to rebuild infrastructure and diversify agriculture away from opium growing. Twenty years of ‘nation building’ by the US and its allies have failed to eradicate the opium trade, or provide clean water and electricity for all.

It gives me no pleasure to say that what has happened in Afghanistan is exactly what the anti-war movement foretold in 2001 and that today’s humanitarian catastrophe is a direct result of the political choices of Bush and Blair at that time. After the attacks of 9/11, the US pursued regime change in Afghanistan. They got involved in a long-running civil war by backing the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, intending to install a friendly puppet regime. But they clearly had not read their history books. Foreign forces with their own agenda trying to impose an unpopular government on another country never ends well, as centuries of colonial history demonstrates. Every people wants to determine its own destiny not have it decided by war criminals in the White House or 10 Downing Street, those who saw themselves as gods to decide the fate of millions. Maybe Blair didn’t look at the history of UK intervention in Afghanistan. Maybe Bush didn’t reflect on the lessons of the Vietnam war. Now, 20 years on, it’s time to acknowledge that US and NATO forces should never have been in Afghanistan. The new propaganda developing in the media, that the withdrawal is a mistake and may lead to further terrorist attacks in the west, is wholly to be rejected and condemned.

It is political and military intervention over decades, if not centuries, that has given rise to these problems, in Afghanistan and internationally. This was widely recognised after the Iraq war and there can be no going back to a rehabilitation of the notion of western intervention being driven by humanitarian concerns. Blair’s concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ has been roundly trashed: it was never any more than window dressing for regime change in the interests of western powers. It’s time to stop seeing Afghanistan as a pawn on a big strategic chessboard, the Great Game of former times. The challenges facing Afghanistan may seem insurmountable, but in large part they have been brought about by the US and NATO and they cannot be part of the solution. The truth is, military intervention has been a disaster and it offers no prospects for the future.

This article was first published here

The suspension of Parliament – a key stage in the UK process – has been defeated but Boris Johnson’s trajectory remains on track. The unanimous verdict of the Supreme Court, announced on Tuesday 24^th September, was that Boris Johnson and the Tory government had acted unlawfully in proroguing parliament from the 9^th September to the 14^th October. It was for most an unexpected verdict and represented a deepening of the split within the establishment. The judiciary, or at least its most significant component, had sided with parliament against the government.

The most obvious and immediate effect was that parliament returned on 25^th September and did not enter a recess for the Tory Party conference. This was a significant setback for the strategy of Johnson and his special advisor Dominic Cummings, and an opportunity for the Labour Party – not through their own efforts but through an individual’s legal challenge backed by other opposition parties.

The first instinct of the Johnson cabal has been to double down and attack the judiciary through the Tory press and in parliament. Johnson’s key ally Rees-Mogg has also attacked the judges calling their verdict a ‘constitutional coup’. No doubt this will harden their base in the Tory party, the Home Counties and the Northern leave areas, but it also creates a serious problem for them.

An important section of the ruling class are not yet disposed to attack the judiciary in this way and recognise the dangers for their class in the Cummings strategy. Moreover the re-opening of parliament makes the no-deal manoeuvres of the Tory government less likely to succeed. This strengthens the position of the Brexit party which is waiting in the wings. Cummings had hoped to undercut the Brexit party with a general election in the wake of a 31^st October Brexit leading to a Johnson victory. The verdict of the judiciary therefore makes a Tory/Brexit Party electoral coming together more likely. It’s unlikely that the Tories now could win a majority in a general election without some kind of deal with the Brexit Party. In the old industrial areas there are sections of the electorate that would never vote Tory but are already willing to vote for Farage and co. Objectively, Brexit and the Brexit party are the mechanisms to split the working class and prevent a left alternative – Labour – coming to power

Johnson was at the UN in New York when the Court judgement was announced, but before he came back to London he met publicly and privately with Trump. No doubt yesterday’s strategy – for how to handle parliament – would have been discussed and Trump is in no doubt that some kind of alliance between Farage and Johnson is necessary.

Johnson was forced to return to parliament and gave an aggressive performance in the House of Commons last night in which it became clear exactly what the labour movement – and indeed wider society – is facing. There was outrage at the insult to the memory of murdered MP Jo Cox – Johnson said the best way to honour her (she was a Remainer) was to deliver Brexit – and the taunting of MPs as traitors and surrender merchants. Today fascists across social media have claimed him as their own and it is absolutely clear that he is building a base amongst the fascists and far right. Wider sections of the population are now open to far right arguments.

Notwithstanding Johnson’s attempts to turn it to his advantage, the Supreme Court decision has been very significant as a mainstream blow to Johnson’s disgraceful anti-democratic actions. Of course it does little to alter the fundamentals – economic and political crisis and the shift to the right in British politics. Although it may be true that the mass of the population do not hold judges, politicians or parliament in great esteem we are not yet at the stage where there is a widespread support for dispensing with bourgeois democracy. Those who do wish to do that largely hail from the far right. The verdict has the effect of moving the Johnson cabal further out of the political and establishment mainstream; they will harden a base around them but they are more clearly identifiable for what they actually are. The crucial next step for the left is to confidently press forward, further isolate them and diminish and defeat their base.

Can the Labour Party do this, given its current failure to give a clear lead on key issues? At this week’s Labour Party conference, the atmosphere was relatively low energy, fractious and insular until the decision was announced from the Supreme Court. The conference had started with a ham-fisted bureaucratic manoeuvre to try and get rid of Deputy Leader Tom Watson and was swiftly followed by news of a senior policy advisor’s resignation. The Another Europe is Possible’s anti-Brexit position was lost because the conference was persuaded that it was a Trojan horse for the right in the party. Corbyn’s ‘we aren’t either leavers or remainers but socialists’ line won in the hall. The problem with this is that an election campaign conducted on an anti-austerity basis is going to crash into the brick wall of Brexit. In effect it will be a one-issue election and to ignore that reality will be catastrophic.

The great danger is that the labour and trade union movement is proceeding as if nothing much has changed and this underpinned the support for the conference’s Composite 14, essentially sitting on the fence – the leadership’s preferred Brexit outcome at conference. There is a misguided belief that the coming election is going to be a reprise of 2017 where Labour broke Theresa May’s majority. Labour has now a much more radical policy programme than 2017 but is in a much weaker political position with poor showings in the opinion polls. At least part of this is because it doesn’t have a clear position on opposing Brexit.

So the decision of the judiciary has deepened the split in the ruling class and hardened up the no deal far right around Johnson and Farage. This is very dangerous politically, but it also opens up political space for Labour – which it is vital that it does not squander – and it creates space for political work from the radical left too. Over the past few weeks we have seen massive protests against Johnson’s closure of parliament – under the slogans ‘Stop the Coup’ and ‘Defend Democracy’; these were largely either spontaneous or organised by the anti-Brexit left. At the same time we have seen huge protests, including extensive civil disobedience, on the issue of climate change. Young people have led the struggles here as elsewhere, and now other movements are joining forces to support them. So this is a period of intensive mobilisation across Britain, with sharper political divides – and a greater risk to our rights and democracy – than have been seen perhaps since the General Strike of 1926. The Labour Party and the radical left must rise to the challenge, in the interests of us all, for much is at stake. We are entering a struggle for the future: not just of this country but across the world. It is a struggle for humanity as a whole – for social justice, equality and economic democracy, to meet the needs of all peoples.

What techniques of active opposition should CND against nuclear weapons was the subject of intense debate when the organisation was formed 60 years ago.

This article is an extract from Kate Hudson’s new book, CND at 60: Britain’s most enduring mass movement, available here…

The first Aldermaston march in April 1958, which was organised by the Direct Action Committee (DAC) and supported by CND, really launched the new movement into the public eye and onto the political agenda. CND went on after the march to pursue a range of campaigning and lobbying activities, building local groups and organising meetings and events. The DAC maintained its orientation towards civil disobedience, with a broader overall goal of changing society through peaceful means. Its principles, summed up by April Carter, who was a leading activist in the DAC, include a ‘belief in the need for non-violent action directed against weapons and bases designed for nuclear warfare, the need for personal commitment, and reliance on popular protest rather than on working through the established political process.’

The position of the CND leadership, on the other hand, can be summed up by a comment from canon John Collins, who was at that time CND’s chair: ‘It seemed to me that for CND as such to identify itself with illegalities would be to alienate its potential supporters, not only in the Labour movement but outside it, to whom the bulk of campaigners wished to address themselves.’

Even so, many in the ranks of CND’s local groups were more sympathetic. For the first couple of years, CND and direct action activities took place side by side, often with considerable overlap. The Thor missile bases were a particular focus for campaigning in those early years and both organisations were involved in activities at these bases. Events did from time to time highlight the differences in approach between the two organisations, however.

Neither condemn nor condone

Towards the end of 1958, DAC carried out an action at the Thor base at North Pickenham in Norfolk, attempting to enter the base. On the first day of the action, it was prevented from entering the base by workmen on the site and, according to Pat Arrowsmith, active in both CND and DAC, the protestors suffered physical attack at their hands while the police looked on. On the second day of the protest, the workers were absent but Pat was thrown into an icy pond by an RAF policeman! The episode was given widespread media attention.

One national daily newspaper, not understanding the different components of the movement, accused CND of sabotage. Canon Collins issued a statement dissociating CND from the action:

‘We aim to change public opinion and the policies of the political parties through the usual democratic channels… The National Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is not in favour of civil disobedience or sabotage so long as reasonable opportunities exist for bringing democratic pressure on Parliament.’

Canon Collins’ statement provoked some anger in the movement, not least because the DAC had not been engaged in sabotage. At the next meeting of CND’s executive committee, it made the statement that in future it would not, ‘as far as possible, publicly repudiate nor formally associate itself with actions involving civil disobedience.’

Not long after this, at CND’s first annual conference in March 1959, Pat Arrowsmith put forward a resolution that CND should undertake civil disobedience. According to CND colleague Peggy Duff, it was likely that a majority of the conference would support the resolution. The executive committee strongly opposed the resolution and threatened to resign en masse if it was passed. Probably as a result of this threat, the resolution was defeated, but not overwhelmingly.

There was a danger though that the issue could be portrayed in an over-polarised way, which was undesirable given that activists shared the same aims, even if they sometimes differed on the appropriate methods. Hugh Brock [then Peace News editor], who was DAC representative on CND’s co-ordinating committee in 1959 ‘sometimes wondered whether the activities of the DAC were rocking the boat too much. He felt that some of their friends too often exaggerated the part they had played, for example, in the first Aldermaston March, which could never have been as successful as it was without the backing of the Campaign.’

In reality, a fairly co-operative approach existed, for example when CND and the DAC decided to co-operate over a demonstration at the Thor missile base at Harrington, Northamptonshire, in January 1960. The DAC planned a march and a sit-down at the base. CND organised a march led by canon Collins ‘in sympathy with civil disobedience but not supportive’ and that would pass the base but not engage in the sit-down. The combined event was a success and seemed a good formula for future co-operation.

Generally speaking, there was not a rigid demarcation over the focus of actions; CND also conducted a range of actions at bases, but without direct action. In 1959, CND had demonstrated at the rocket bases in Yorkshire and at RAF Brize Norton, amongst others. But of course CND’s great strength was that it sought to involve many people in its campaigning and to get the message out far and wide amongst the population.

A major CND campaign in September 1959, was entitled the ‘Let Britain Lead’ week. It sounds a bit odd nowadays, but it was encouraging Britain to take the lead on nuclear disarmament. A sense of the scale of the campaign can be grasped by the fact that in one week of campaigning a million leaflets were given out all over Britain, 50 national speakers toured the country, there were marches and rallies in every region and the CND Architects’ Group produced 18 exhibitions for public display. As a result, 20 new local groups were formed.

Committee of 100

Later that year, however, a new initiative was launched, which led to sharp conflict within CND’s leadership – between its chair, canon Collins, and its president, Bertrand Russell. The trouble began as Russell started to articulate and act upon the frustrations of those in the movement who found the CND leadership’s approach too conventional.

In the middle of 1960, Russell was visited by a young American called Ralph Schoenman, who proposed a new campaigning approach: neither the mass marches and legal protests of CND, nor the activities of the DAC, which in Russell’s words, ‘were too often concerned with individual testimony by way of salving individual consciences.’ Schoenman’s idea was mass civil disobedience, intending to combine the direct action of DAC and the mass movement of CND. Russell took up the idea, and the Committee of 100 was formed.

The Committee of 100’s first demonstration took place in February 1961, outside the MoD headquarters, to protest the arrival of the US Polaris depot ship at Holy Loch in Scotland. Around 4,000 people sat down in protest, but there were no arrests. The DAC also took direct action at Holy Loch itself at the same time, and the events gained widespread public attention.

In March 1961, CND’s annual conference reaffirmed its commitment to legal methods, but it also congratulated the DAC and Committee of 100 on their demonstrations. The conference stated that the three different forms of protest should be seen as ‘three techniques in a united attack on preparations for nuclear war.’ In other words, it was recognised that these diverse methods were all valid parts of the process of campaigning against nuclear weapons. This remains CND’s position today.

NEW BOOK
CND at 60: Britain’s most enduring mass movement

This is the introduction to Kate Hudson’s new book, CND at 60: Britain’s most enduring mass movement, covering six decades of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – from the mass protests at Aldermaston and Greenham Common, to its central role in post 9/11 anti-war campaigning. Available to buy here…

The impact of nuclear weapons – in both human and environmental terms – is widely recognised. A nuclear war would kill millions, perhaps destroying the entire human race. The radioactive fallout would render parts, if not all, of the planet uninhabitable. There would be no place to run to, no place to hide; in the event of a nuclear war, you may escape the blast but you cannot shut the door on radiation. It will poison and destroy, bringing sickness, cancers, birth deformities and death.

The consequences of nuclear weapons are widely understood by governments across the globe. So it seems incomprehensible that, over 70 years after the atomic bombs were dropped, nuclear weapons still exist – and that some political leaders still contemplate their use. Today, in the region of 15,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled – enough to destroy human civilisation and the world as we know it many times over. The US alone has almost 7,000 nuclear warheads. Britain has over 200 nuclear warheads; this perhaps seems small in comparison, but each of Britain’s warheads has eight times the explosive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That is a phenomenal killing power – potentially 320 million people dead as a result of British nuclear weapons alone.

To make matters worse, political developments globally have been such over the past few years that there is an increased danger of the use of nuclear weapons. But contrary to what our government here in the UK would have us think, the danger does not come primarily from rogue states, terrorists or ‘non-state actors’. The people developing scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons are the existing nuclear weapons states, all of which are modernizing their nuclear weapons systems. This constitutes a dangerous escalation that could have unthinkable consequences for every one of us. But we are also aware that at the same time the majority of the global community is pushing for nuclear abolition – most notably through the UN’s nuclear weapons ban treaty. It is vital for the very future of humanity that this initiative is successful and we can all play a part in that process. In particular, here in the UK we have a responsibility to bring our own government on board.

For sixty years, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, or CND, has inspired, led and organised – and no doubt infuriated and annoyed! – many hundreds of thousands of people, and has contributed to changes in politics and society that have shaped the lives of millions. It has been in the leadership of the largest popular mobilisations in every generation since World War II. It has been remarkable for its flexibility and dynamism, embracing methods as diverse as vigils, lobbying, mass demonstrations, raising issues in elections, human chains, peace camps, nonviolent direct action, theatre, letter writing: education, leafleting, street stalls, poetry and art, festivals, die-ins (lying on the ground, symbolising death), petitioning, walks, music, fasts, and a host of other imaginative forms of work. It has opposed all nuclear weapons from Polaris to Trident, and before and beyond; it has campaigned against wars where nuclear weapons may be used and against illegal wars that destroy the framework ofinternational law; against weapons in space, NATO, illegal preemptive attacks; nuclear power, nuclear waste transportation, the militarisation of Europe, the use of radioactive ‘depleted’ uranium in conventional weapons; the waste of spending on arms and much more. It champions a world of peace and social justice, free from the fear of nuclear annihilation.

The context of CND’s campaigns has changed continually: from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the war on Vietnam, from the height of the Cold War to detente, from the ‘evil empire’ of Ronald Reagan to the end of the Cold War, through the aggressive wars of Bush and Blair to the world of Trump and beyond. Whatever the context, CND has worked with others, in Britain and abroad, to find the most appropriate campaigning forms to bring our own anti-nuclear issues to the fore, to make them central in the current political agenda. That is not to say that the process of arriving at the right position to take, or the right campaigning initiative, has always been easy. On the contrary, argument and debate have been the hallmark of CND throughout its history. Disagreements have arisen over a range of issues: how much we should get involved in anti-war campaigning; how much direct action is appropriate; what stance we should take on nuclear power; what we think about parliamentary politics.

This is because only a movement open to different views can adapt and develop in an ever-changing world, and CND members are so passionate about their goals that they are determined to get it right. As a result CND has been able to play a leading role in virtually every peace campaign since its birth. CND’s most important asset has always been the accumulated experience of its members and its ability to consider different views through democratic debate. Many CND members have decades of experience in campaigning and participate fully in CND’s internal democracy and decision making processes. Our members do not hang back in expressing their views. Chairing a CND meeting has been described to me as being ‘like trying to herd cats’!

The purpose of this book is to tell the story of this extraordinary organisation, from its birth to the present day. It will explain the origins and development of the atomic bomb, why something so terrible was ever created, and the circumstances of its use by the US on Japan in 1945. The myth that dropping the bomb was necessary to end the war will be completely debunked and the tragic consequences of this criminal action will be explained. The book also explains the political events surrounding and shaping each phase of CND’s development and how anti-nuclear campaigning affected government policy and decision making (even if it wasn’t admitted at the time). Reading government documents and diaries years later, one can see how the pressure of public opinion and mass mobilisation really does have an impact, and each generation of CND has played a part in that. The banning of nuclear tests is one very important example; another is the abandoning of the neutron bomb (designed to kill people whilst leaving property intact) or Nixon’s pulling back from using nukes on Vietnam. There is a significant list of movement victories and we continue to work to add to this list.

In many respects, the history of CND is the history of post-World War II, told from the side of those fighting for humanity against the horror of war. It is the story of ordinary people’s struggles to shape a world without nuclear weapons and war, based on legality and morality; to make our governments responsive and accountable over our right to stay alive, our right to breathe air free of radioactive pollution, our right to say no to the indiscriminate killing of other peoples. CND has been most successful and effective when it has related directly to people’s most pressing concerns – linking our issues to the reality of what is going on in the world. Nuclear weapons are not the preserve of technological or military experts, in some specialist niche that isn’t relevant to ordinary mortals. Nuclear weapons are the concern of us all, for in them humankind has created something that could end our very existence – and governments will only shift on nuclear weapons policy when enoughof us demand change.

We continue to make this history and we continue with our struggle to bring our vision of the world into being.

Social Radicalisation. Kate Hudson reads from her book CND at 60

Published February 2018
CND at 60: Britain’s most enduring mass movement

Source: The Independent

The following August, the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb at Semipalatinsk in Soviet central Asia. For the rest of the decade, test after test was carried out – to mounting public concern over both the health consequences of widespread radioactive pollution, and the increasing danger of nuclear weapons use.

By the end of the 1950s, more than 300 nuclear tests had taken place, mostly in the atmosphere – and a new mass movement had been born.

From its origins in local anti-testing groups – largely run by women concerned about hugely increased levels of radioactive strontium-90 in their children’s milk – CND burst onto the political scene 17 February 1958. Attempts to move Labour to an anti-nuclear position had failed in 1957, leading intellectuals and campaigners to take matters into their own hands, calling for a mass movement to defeat Britain’s bomb. The result was a meeting of thousands of people at Central Hall in Westminster, London, filled to overflowing.

The rest, as they say, is history.

CND in its early years was inextricably linked to the social radicalisation of the time. The early Aldermaston marches, to the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire, represented microcosms of post-war, post-colonial Britain, articulating both widespread popular dissent and the social rebellion of the youth of the time. In many respects it was through the early mobilisations of the anti-nuclear movement that the radical politics of what were to become the new social movements were first expressed.

The context of CND’s campaigns has changed continually: from the Cuban missile crisis to the war on Vietnam; from the height of the Cold War to détente; from the “evil empire” of Ronald Reagan to the end of the Cold War; from the aggression of Bush and Blair through to the great dangers presented by Trump and his plans for “usable” nuclear weapons. Our work throughout has focused on changing government policy, using diverse – but always peaceful – methods: from the mass protests at Aldermaston and Greenham Common, to our central role in post 9/11 anti-war campaigning, to today’s struggle to prevent Trident replacement and win support for the United Nations’ global nuclear ban treaty.

Our core objective of UK nuclear disarmament remains as yet unfulfilled. But it is clear in retrospect how CND’s campaigning – and that of its international partners – has affected government policy and decision-making, both at home and internationally. Reading government documents and diaries years later, one can see how the pressure of public opinion and mass mobilisation really does have an impact, and each generation of CND has played a part in that. The banning of nuclear tests in the atmosphere is one very important example; another is the abandoning of the neutron bomb (designed to kill people while leaving property intact) or Nixon’s pulling back from using nukes on Vietnam.

Above all, we have helped instil a sense in the popular consciousness – and thereby in that of our political leaders – that the use of nuclear weapons would be a catastrophe, an unthinkable tragedy.

So it’s 60 years and still counting. CND is here to stay – until the monstrosity of nuclear weapons are abandoned. Trident replacement and its £205bn price tag remain within our sights. Support for the UN’s global nuclear ban treaty – already backed by a significant majority of states – is being built. However the political context changes, our goal remains the same. And ultimately, we will prevail.

Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

New Book, published February 2018
CND at 60: Britain’s most enduring mass movement

Book Launch: Friends Meeting House London | Thursday 8 March | Speaker Kate Hudson. Details…

CND at 60 | £12.95 post free

This book is timed to coincide with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s 60^th anniversary, drawing on archive material and interviews with activists from across the decades, and situating CND’s current work in the context of the Trump presidency and increasing global tensions around nuclear weapons.

Founded in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, CND voiced a growing concern about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Since then CND has become a byword for protest and radicalism, shaping three generations and inspiring mass movements for peace across the globe.

This is a timely and important book, by CND general secretary Kate Hudson. It provides detailed coverage of the inside story of six decades of CND – from the mass protests at Aldermaston and Greenham Common, to its central role in post 9/11 anti-war campaigning, to today’s struggle to prevent Trident replacement and win support for the United Nations’ new global ban on nuclear weapons.

Kate Hudson is a political activist, peace campaigner and academic, author of Breaking the South Slav Dream: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia; European Communism Since 1989; The New European Left: a socialism for the twenty-first century?, and editor of Free Movement and Beyond: agenda setting for Brexit Britain.

CND at 60 | £12.95 post free

Everyone senses that we are experiencing a remarkable change in British politics. The dominant ruling class narrative – that had been embraced by Labour –that there was no alternative to neo-liberalism and austerity policies, has been broken. And that is a vital step in the recovery of popular ownership of society, because pretty much everything that is happening in British politics and society today is the inevitable result of nearly four decades of neo-liberalism.

Thatcher began the really serious onslaught on ‘society’, on state ownership, on redistribution of wealth via the social wage, on workers’ rights and regulation, on many elements of the welfare state which had advanced the working class in this country since 1945. She destroyed much of British industry, both intentionally to smash the power of the organised working class, and in order to reorientate the economy towards financial services and global capital.

That process in the UK, also developing in the US under the Reagan/Thatcher axis, was paralleled through the imposition, by international financial institutions, of structural adjustment policies in Africa and Latin America, forcing economies open and ransacking them, leaving communities impoverished or even destitute. After the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the same neo-liberal policy prescriptions were imposed on Russia and eastern Europe by the IMF, and western Europe was brought into the same fold through government spending caps imposed by the Maastricht Treaty.

Social democracy capitulated to the neo-liberal agenda and in essence what that has meant in Britain is that whole communities have been devastated by the de-industrialisation process initiated by Thatcher, the working class more widely ground down by attacks on the welfare state, since compounded by the austerity agenda post-2008. The failure of social democracy (up until the Labour election manifesto of 2017) to challenge this politically has meant that the Conservative Party narrative as to why this has happened to working class communities and our society more broadly, has been accepted and bought into by many. Firstly, the explanation was ‘there is no alternative’, secondly, that ‘we are all in it together’, and thirdly, that ‘immigrants are to blame’.

So part of the current crisis we face, Brexit and the rise of racism and xenophobia, is to a considerable extent because of an acceptance of a false Tory narrative used to justify the economic disaster, willingly inflicted on many communities by ruling elites that have continued to pursue neo-liberal economics because it profits them.

So neo-liberalism has brought our society to the brink of disaster: to extreme impoverishment – food banks, unemployment, homelessness, old people dying unattended in squalid conditions, hospitals struggling to treat their patients, necessary medicines being ruled out for cost reasons: to social fragmentation and division, where workers blame other workers for the economic catastrophe imposed by our ruling class, where people are abused because of the language they speak, where refugees are refused safe haven from wars our ruling class has wreaked upon them.

But now, finally, the equally inevitable consequence of neo-liberalism is taking place: that the people will organise and fight back, to defend their homes, their jobs, their lives, their self-respect. That fight back has had many manifestations internationally, over the decades, from Africa to Latin America and beyond. The resistance was so successful that for a generation in Latin America, the left was on the rise, with extraordinary and inspiring social, political and economic reforms transforming the lives of millions. Since 2008 when neo-liberalism has hit western Europe most brutally, we have seen the rise of the radical left in Europe, particularly in southern Europe, rejecting austerity and the destruction of their welfare states. In Britain, we have seen that same surge, essentially against extreme neo-liberalism and what it does not only to our economy but to our society as well, bursting forth through the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, and then through the huge increase of Labour’s share of the vote at the general election. Corbyn has offered something different, not the Tory-lite of previous Labour governments, but a rolling back of neo-liberalism. It is crucial now to ensure that the Conservatives are pushed back further and Labour takes government.

But this will only be the first real battle in the war to recover what the working class has lost and to extend those earlier gains: to restructure economy and society in the interests of all. There is no doubt that the ruling class will fight back harder, using illegitimate and anti-democratic, even authoritarian methods, to prevent any real change.

We can look at how this process has unfolded against the earlier round of popular fight back against neo-liberalism. In Latin America today, left governments are under a terrible onslaught from US-backed rightwing forces, as evidenced very clearly in Brazil and Venezuela. In Greece, the Syriza government, even with mass popular support, was forced to capitulate to the European financial institutions. What can we draw from these experiences to shape the way we organise in support of a Corbyn government with a popular reform agenda?

In the first years of this century, movements globally were drawn together through the World Social Forum process, building on and extending the anti-globalisation movement which had success in some arenas against global capital – like the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, through globally coordinated action. Those were remarkable times for mass mobilisation, bringing together movements and peoples across the world. For a while there were many in the movements who thought that the days of parties winning power, as the way to achieve social and economic change, was over. But this perception – and the social forum process itself – ebbed away after the massive progressive advances in Latin America, which came about through the taking of state power. But subsequent events have shown that the taking of state power is clearly not an end to the story, even where acceding to government has been accompanied by very extensive political restructuring and reform.

Where progressive governments have come under attack, whether in Greece or Latin America, it is clear that government and party together is not enough. There are two other crucial ingredients to being able to take power and continue in power.

The first is the people: to have the people not just in support, but actively engaged in the political process and in the transformation of society. The people, mobilised and actively participating in coming to power and staying in power, through the movements, cannot be subordinate to the party, or disregarded or disenfranchised from the political process. A progressive government should not only be for the people, but of the people and through the people. And that relationship has to continue, because the moment it is undermined is when the progressive government becomes vulnerable to its class opponents.

The second is international solidarity. This is an essential factor in maintaining a progressive government in power and most significant where it can come from other like-minded governments. When Syriza was facing its crisis moment, before defeat, against the Troika of European capitalist institutions, the situation would have been very different if other European countries had shared their politics and stood up to the bullying. The reality is, they were on their own. Support, from the trade unions and the movements, was there in small part, but totally insignificant when it came to the crunch, even though everyone said that the Greeks were the lab rats of Europe and they had to be defended.

Occasionally our struggles may seem to be won nationally, but none of these struggles are now national struggles. They can only be properly won and sustained on an international basis, through international cooperation and solidarity. Party and movement together, nationally and internationally: that is the only way that the people can win, and the only way that the victory can be sustained.