The latest development involves UK impounding of an Iranian oil tanker, deemed to be breaking EU sanctions on Syria. Now Iran has returned the favour by seizing a British tanker. Currently the British government has ruled out a military response but the US may use this as part of its build up to war.

The origins of this latest crisis lie with US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The re-imposed sanctions have devastated the Iranian economy and while the EU – including the UK – seeks to maintain the agreement, the economic steps they have taken to alleviate the impact on Iran, via Instex – are so far wholly inadequate. This must be rectified: US bullying cannot be allowed to destroy such a valuable agreement and stoke the flames of war.

For those who doubt US culpability for so many elements of this crisis and prefer to point the finger at Iran, I would reference those who describe recent events as Pompeo’s ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ incident against Iran. This refers to the events in 1964 where a naval confrontation between the US and North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin was misrepresented by the US to justify greater US military engagement in Vietnam, leading to a full-on war in which millions were killed.

No one should rush to any judgement without evidence, but it should be noted that the US has form – as does the UK – when it comes to Iran. In 1953, the US and UK governments worked together to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Their goal was to retain US and UK control over Iranian oil reserves, which he had sought to limit. The failure of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to comply with Mossadegh’s attempts to audit the company’s documents led the Iranian parliament to nationalise Iran’s oil industry. The coup followed shortly afterwards and the rule of the despotic Shah was strengthened.

Some might say this is a jaundiced view, but that is not the case. Sixty years later, in August 2013, the US government released documents that formally acknowledged the role of the US in both planning and executing the coup. The CIA admitted that the coup was carried out under CIA direction, as an act of US foreign policy, ‘conceived and approved at the highest levels of government’.

Those willing to throw around accusations without irrefutable evidence should take a warning from history: from 1964 and the false flag attack which led to the appalling war on Vietnam, and from 1953 and the illegal and unforgivable intervention against a sovereign country and its democratically elected leader.

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

The nightmare of nuclear apocalypse hangs over humanity. It will one day become a reality, unless we stop it.

Source: The Guardian

That’s just one bomb, of course. What if 100 nuclear warheads with a much lower yield – 15 kilotons, say, the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima – were exchanged on the Indian subcontinent? Well, scientists have modelled this scenario, and the calamity extends far beyond the borders of India and Pakistan. As five megatons of black carbon instantly enter the atmosphere, temperatures will suddenly fall, rainfall will decline, the ozone layer will thin dramatically and the frost-free growing period for crops will shorten by between 10 and 40 days. According to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 2 billion people could starve in the aftermath. In a full east-west exchange billions would also die. Infrastructure would collapse. The survivors would, it is often said, envy the dead. They would suffer torturous protracted deaths from radiation; they would scrabble for food in irradiated soil; as healthcare systems implode, their illnesses and cancers would be untreated. For the diminishing minority who remained alive, it would be everyone for themselves in a struggle for survival in a ravaged hellscape.

Why inflict this horror on your imagination? It seems so abstract and distant, and yet, according to the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, we are but two minutes from midnight. The US and Russia combined have around 2,000 nuclear weapons on a hair trigger, meaning they could be launched in minutes, leaving my scenarios just hours away.

There have been many close calls. In 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski – President Carter’s national security adviser – was woken up at 3am to be told that 250 Soviet nuclear missiles were heading to the US. If the president were to retaliate, he would have between three and seven minutes to decide. An updated report came through: there were 2,200 missiles. Armageddon beckoned. But the reports were wrong. “Someone had mistakenly put military exercise tapes into the computer system,” as the former defence secretary Robert Gates put it. Consider today, with Donald Trump in the White House facing off against North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. A nuclear arsenal on a hair trigger under the control of a man whose Twitter feed is a never-ending temper tantrum is not exactly reassuring. Millions could perish in a nuclear conflagration in a matter of hours.

Which brings me to the noble but marginalised cause of nuclear disarmament. This Sunday marks 60 years since the first march to Aldermaston – where Britain’s nuclear bombs are produced – which spawned the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). There is a certain paradox in the fact that a supporter of nuclear disarmament leads the Labour party, and yet the cause is barely on the nation’s political radar, even as Kim pledges to de-nuke the Korean peninsula. That’s because Labour’s leadership has made a strategic decision to accept party policy, which is to renew Trident.

Cards on the table: I’m a unilateralist but I’ve accepted Labour’s position. It depends how the question is phrased, but polling does not suggest any substantial public appetite for unilateral disarmament. Many unions are opposed. Such a policy would reopen a civil war with a Labour right that is already increasingly febrile. With the priority being to transform Britain with socialist policies, such a compromise seems sad but unavoidable. And yet the arguments for replacing Trident are based on utter delusion, the cost of acting on these delusions is grotesque, and we are rendered colossal hypocrites by lecturing the world about weapons of mass destruction while renewing our own. CND believes the lifetime cost will be at least £205bn. What would that money mean for an NHS that last year, the Red Cross said, faced a “humanitarian crisis”; for our struggling education system; and for eliminating the housing crisis?

Listen to Tony Blair’s former defence secretary Des Browne, who suggested that cyber attacks against Trident could render it obsolete. Or take former Tory defence secretary Michael Portillo, who said that Trident’s replacement was “a waste of money” and that “our independent nuclear deterrent is not independent and doesn’t constitute a deterrent”. Tony Blair himself said he could see “the common sense and practical argument” against Trident, that “the expense is huge, and the utility in a post-cold war world is less in terms of deterrent, and nonexistent in terms of military use”. So why throw all that money at it? Because in Blair’s own words it would be “too big a downgrading of our status as a nation”. All that wasted money for status alone.

There’s more wisdom from the Tory Crispin Blunt, when he was chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee in 2016, who said: “At what point is it no longer value for money in the UK? In my judgment we have reached that point.” We fail to adequately tackle the actual threats facing Britain and leave our conventional forces under-resourced because of the Trident obsession.

Nearly a decade ago, Field Marshall Lord Bramall – former head of the armed forces – and two senior generals described nukes as “completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently face or are likely to face”.

Take terrorism, take cyber-attacks, take climate change: all pose grave, demonstrable threats to our security. Yet we are failing to invest in tackling them, while billions are thrown at weapons of mass destruction that do not keep us safe. Labour policy cannot shift until public opinion does decisively. As the cold war revived in the early 1980s, CND led mass national campaigns that began to shift opinion: the same is needed today to stop this madness (and it is madness).

There are other steps that can be taken in the meantime. Labour should be campaigning for Russia and the US to cease putting their arsenal on hair-trigger alert. They should exert moral pressure on other nations to sign up to the comprehensive test ban treaty.

Britain cannot disarm the world, but it can set an example. The nightmare of nuclear apocalypse hangs over humanity. It will one day become a reality, unless we stop it.

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…

Source: The Mirror

He knew his cause – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – was just. And he still believes in it with equal passion today.

This Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of CND. It was formed in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, with Russia and the United States racing to have the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons .

In a climate that fuelled fears of Armageddon, left-wing intellectuals, church leaders, politicians and ­journalists gathered in London’s Westminster Hall to launch CND. From this meeting grew a mass movement that was to play a crucial role in UK and global politics.

Early supporters included Michael Foot, the actors Peggy Ashcroft and Dame Edith Evans, sculptor Henry Moore, historian AJP Taylor and composer Benjamin Britten. Thousands of young people got their first taste of political activism with the marches at Aldermaston, home to the Atomic Weapons ­Re­­­­­- search Establishment in Berkshire.

The first march, in Easter 1958, attracted a few thousand people but by 1961 150,000 joined the 52-mile walk from the base to London. Their fears were deemed justified by the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the world was on the brink of war following Russia’s attempt to build a nuclear base on the island.

In the late 1960s support trailed off as people swapped Ban the Bomb placards for Vietnam War protests. However CND’s fortunes revived in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan sparked a new arms race. Margaret Thatcher’s agreement to allow the US to site its cruise missiles in the UK led to the establishment of the Greenham Common women’s peace camp outside the ­Berk­­shire air base. The figurehead of the anti-nuclear movement then was mild-mannered priest Bruce Kent.

He delights in revealing his first impression of CND was not positive. “I was quite hostile to it because I was a curate in Kensington and they marched from Aldermaston to London and my church was on the route and I had at least five weddings and all the brides were late and I was furious,” he chuckles.

But his political stance was sharpened through conversations with the Catholic Bishop of Mumbai. “He said if it is immoral to murder 10,000 or 100,000 innocent people it is equally immoral to go round
with that intention in your head. And I thought, he’s ­absolutely right,” Bruce says.

With characteristic modesty, he plays down his central role in turning around the fortunes of the campaign. He says he became general ­secretary of CND in January 1980 “because nobody else wanted to be”.

A year later 150,000 marched in London, 200,000 people gathered in Brussels and 100,000 in Paris. There were rallies in Hyde Park in 1982 and 1983, illegal occupations of US bases and sit-downs in Whitehall.

‘Embrace the Base’: 30,000 women link hands, completely surrounding the nine mile perimeter fence at RAF/USAF Greenham Common, Berkshire, 1982.

“It was the fault of Ronald Reagan, who was calling the Soviets the ‘Evil Empire’, and the US was deploying cruise missiles which were not a deterrent, they were explicitly to be used if the Soviets invaded. That really woke people up,” Bruce says in the North London flat he shares with his wife Valerie.

Their home is filled with ­memorabilia. At one end of the mantelpiece is a miner’s lamp presented to him by trade unionist Arthur ­Scargill. At the other end is a tankard from his Tank Regiment days.

Bruce says his background in the Army made it difficult for opponents to portray him as a “lefty ­com­­munist”. Though they tried… “A man named Julian Lewis, who is high up in the Conservative Party, said CND meant Communist, Neutralist and Defeatist,” he says.

Bruce left the priesthood after being told he must choose between the church or politics.

“A priest was meant to be politically neutral and also the church in those days was sur­­­r­­ounded by right-wing influence. We were seen as disloyal and partisan. Now, with the Pope of today, they wouldn’t have been incompatible at all. I’m still a Catholic.”

By the end of the 1980s, CND was again in decline following the detente between Russia and the US. It still boasts 25,000 members though this is a fraction of the 150,000 it had in the 1980s.

Renewing Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons deterrent, still remains party policy for Labour and the Tories. Even Jeremy Corbyn , a lifelong supporter of the movement, has yet to persuade his party to abandon its pro-nuclear stance.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party leader, speaking at CND rally in Trafalgar Square, 2016.

I ask Bruce what he thinks CND has achieved. “We kept it on the agenda and achieved quite a lot internationally. In July 2017, 122 countries passed a resolution at the United Nations calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. It took 40 years to get votes for women, the ending of slavery took something like 50 years so the fact that things take a long time doesn’t deter me.

“We made a difference or they wouldn’t have been so hostile. We made a difference to public opinion. I’m not sorry. We did quite well,” he says.

Joan Ruddock, the former Labour MP who worked with Bruce as chair of CND in the 1980s, also believes the campaign was successful.

“We were very effective in creating the situation where the Russians were able to make that first gesture by Mikhail Gorbachev, to remove intermediate range missiles from Europe,” she says and recalls one of Gorbachev’s advisers told her “your campaign inspired us”. Dame Joan, 74, who had her own puppet in the satirical Spitting Image TV show, says her phones were tapped. “I was constantly followed by Special Branch,” she says.

For his part, Bruce has been given fresh hope by Corbyn’s ­leadership. “Jeremy Corbyn said he’d never press the button – that’s quite a significant thing for a future Prime Minister to say.”

Bruce still gives talks in schools but what keeps driving him? “I’m partly indignant this stupidity goes on. How can you use a nuclear weapon without triggering hundreds of other ones and polluting the planet for another 50 to 100 years? It’s not a weapon, it’s an ­instrument of omnicide.”

Bruce Kent, now aged 88, still campaigning for peace.

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