Thank you for inviting me to be on this panel tonight, I am honoured to share a platform with such a broad group of dedicated campaigners and activists, leaders in society and principled politicians!

This is a crucial debate at a crucial time. At the best of times, replacing Trident would be a disaster for this country and for peace, but taking that decision now, without meaningful consultation - outside of Blair’s internal monologue - and without a thorough investigation of all the options, is reprehensible

Replacing Trident is sheer hypocrisy. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, warned that Britain cannot expect other countries to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons if we upgrade Trident. The government is now ‘cunningly’ trying to convince the public that there are good nuclear weapons and bad nuclear weapons - Ours, of course, are good and there’s, rather predictably, are bad. No wonder we are viewed with such disdain around the world.

We are told there is no money to fund free education or public services, to stop child poverty, global debt or climate change. Yet we can afford to spend £76 billion - an amount of money I can not even comprehend -- on replacing and maintaining a nuclear weapons system that politicians freely admit, will never even be used. And to those who say it’s a deterrent. I say a deterrent to what? Terrorism? Well it didn’t work on September 11th, and it certainly didn’t work on July 7th.

We are spending, and planning to further spend billions of pounds to ensure our paranoid “security” - well this money will be wasted as soon as a new nuclear arms race is triggered. Surely a more sustainable approach to peace would be spending that money on educating the next generations to talk themselves out of conflict rather than bomb their way out.

And weren’t we were meant to start disarming 30 years ago? If a nation like Britain has abandoned the non-proliferation treaty, is installing the capacity to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, has asserted the right to strike pre-emptively and is beginning, in short, to look like a large and well-armed rogue state, then what possible incentive do other nations have to abandon their weapons?

Apparently our new missile system is necessary because some countries have not been complying with their obligations under the non-proliferation treaty so we apparently are justified in refusing to comply with our own obligations. This provides any other country with ammunition it needs to ignoring the treaty in response - it becomes a vicious circle of paranoia and self protectionism.

In April, we will go into preparatory talks for the 2010 conference on the future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea has pulled out, Iran and much of the Middle East could follow. Now is the time the NPT needs toughening, but that will mean nothing unless all its signatories stick to the core principles of non-proliferation and disarmament. Replacing Trident is tearing any UK commitment to shreds.

You cannot fudge non-nuclear proliferation. Either we have nuclear weapons or we don’t.

I’m constantly being told that young people should engage more in politics, that the youth are disenfranchised, apathetic, not involved. But we are involved, and we’re active. But we’ve been pushed into the fringes - along with the issues that we care about. Politicians ignore public opinion at will. Hostility to the replacement of Trident has barely been whispered in parliament. And if we cannot get involved in the democratic structures of our country, then where can we?

Any the longer the debate is avoided, the larger the stockpile of unanswered questions gets. We haven’t even been given a good reason why the new fleet must be authorised now. The current system’s good for many years.

If Trident is replaced, it will be because of our politician’s cowardice and paranoia. I do not want to live in a country that builds walls around itself, hoards food and then turns the lights out, too fearful to make a stand against what could be one of the biggest mistakes we have ever made.

Nuclear weapons are just not acceptable, not in 1945, not now, not ever.

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/gemmatumelty/274020.aspx