As the House of Commons debates the controversial renewal of Britain's Trident nuclear programme, Mary Russellreports from a protest camp at Faslane naval base in Scotland
Loch Lomond has its scenery, Loch Ness its monster and Loch Long, on the Clyde estuary, its four Vanguard-class, nuclear-powered Trident submarines, each carrying 16 nuclear warheads with a capability 1,600 times greater than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Secrecy surrounds the submarines, and it took the Scotsmansix months to gain permission for one of its journalists to board a sub. Being a Trident submariner is clearly no ball game. Gone from base, he wrote, and submerged for three months at a time, allowed a letter from home weekly (40 words max, screened by naval security, with news of family deaths etc deleted), the men - there are no female submariners - live in cramped quarters, breathe in recycled oxygen, and pass the time playing computer games and working out on an exercise bike.
If instructed to press the red button in retaliation, the commander must do so, then wait. If nothing has been heard from his superiors over a given number of days, he must open a sealed letter from British prime minister Tony Blair which will tell him where to go next - assuming there is somewhere for him to go.
Across the road from the Royal Navy's Trident base at Faslane is a group of people who aren't living on easy street either. These include Angie Zelter, one of the organisers of Faslane365, a non-violent organisation opposed to nuclear weapons and, in particular, to the UK government's plan to replace Trident, which becomes obsolete in 2020.
The team lives in a few caravans, some more comfortable than others - and, having stayed in one, I use the word comfortable advisedly. Individuals contribute £12 (€17.60) a week towards domestic services, which is how Zelter's caravan is equipped with cell phones, a landline and a computer: organising a peaceful, year-round programme of civil resistance requires considerable co-ordination.
When I visited Faslane, the weather was wet and windy, with snow on Ben Lomond. A group from Coventry had just mounted a blockade, a contingent of Scottish pensioners was arriving to do the same and the following week a Christian group was expected. Irish Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan has accompanied a number of Quakers from Ireland; people have arrived from Germany, France and Scandinavia, as have MEPs, religious leaders, writers, academics - and Billy Bragg.
The annual bill for policing this activity is expected to reach £16 million compared with £2.5 million last year. When I strolled along a public road leading to the base, I was recorded on police video three times and accompanied by two minders from the North Yorkshire Constabulary who chatted to me all the way there - and back.
Two vanloads of police officers are regularly stationed opposite the Faslane365 camp, police SUVs patrol the razor -wired perimeter of the naval base and some 50 officers took it in turns to guard the installation during the pensioners' demonstration following which three people were arrested, including Harry McEachan OBE. "It stands for Over Bloody Eighty," he shouted to me before being carried away by six police officers. Since the ongoing blockade began six months ago, there have been 517 arrests and 21 prosecutions.
"They're arresting the wrong people. It's the navy which is committing the crime, on instructions from the government," Zelter says, pointing out that the firing of nuclear weapons offends international law on two counts: "One, we are required not to fire weapons indiscriminately. That is, weapons that will kill both military and civilians. Two, there must be proportionality."
The Scots entertain their own national concerns, fearing that having Trident on their doorstep leaves the whole country and not just the Glasgow area vulnerable to attack. Quite a few are incensed that Chancellor Gordon Brown, a man of the manse, is in favour of Trident. Margaret Brown, a protester from Largs, put it bluntly: "We don't want Trident. I have always voted Conservative, like my father, but this time I'm voting SNP."
SOME LOCALS HAVE objected to the blockade, saying that it delays them getting to work or delivering children to school. "No, not true," says an activist. "We clear the way for children and emergency vehicles. The police know that, though they don't always act on it."
Jane Tallents, a Faslane365 team member and local resident, says that they have quite a good relationship with Strathclyde police: "They understand our position of non-violence and share our concern that no one should get hurt. I brought a blind woman over to meet the inspector at a demonstration recently and he explained her rights to her but she threw us completely by lying down on the road and refusing to budge so then he had to arrest her."
Other forces have not been so understanding; officers from Thames Valley and West Yorkshire have been accused of wrongful use of handcuffs and of applying force to pressure points. The latter, says Zelter, amounts to torture. "And I don't know why they do it. We're not armed robbers."
"We handcuff people," a police officer told me, "for our own safety. After all, we don't know who we're dealing with." Her colleague nods: "They could be Hannibal Lecter," he explains.
One major obstacle to getting rid of Trident is that it pumps an estimated £200 million (€294m) annually into the local economy as well as providing an income for the 7,000 civilians and defence workers employed at the base, many of whom spend their money in the small town of Helensburgh which increasingly relies on uncertain seasonal tourism.
Tallents, however, complains that money spent on Trident is cash diverted from local services: "We now have no accident and emergency department here. Our community centre has closed down and the library is open only a few days a week." Further south, the criticism is the same. Nuala Young, an Oxford City Councillor, says that the replacement of Trident will cost the Oxfordshire area £256 million (€376m) at a time when major teaching hospitals are closing wards because of a shortage of beds.
The replacement of Trident has moved up the political agenda in the UK, with MPs pushing today to delay a decision on its future, amid political resignations and protest. There are strong cross-party demands that the issue should be open to public as well as parliamentary scrutiny and that a decision should not be rushed through.
Sceptics, however, suspect the die is already cast. At Aldermaston in Berkshire, where the warheads are made, gantries are in place indicating the construction of the new Orion laser which will simulate nuclear explosions and, at Faslane, major building work is ongoing.
"It's hard to get men to work on the subs," says Tallents. "I know some of them. They're family men but when they're away, their wives have to operate virtually as single mothers so the navy is building five-star accommodation with good sports facilities to attract new submariners - while our young people have nothing."
Trident is classed as Britain's independent nuclear weapon, but opponents argue that though the order to fire would be given by London, Britain's dependency on US software suggests any such decision, together with the identification of a target, cannot be made independently of Washington. In any case, they say, though the strategic thinking behind having nuclear weapons is that they deter attack from belligerent countries, the threats to Britain's security are climate change and terrorism - against which Trident is helpless.
Defence mechanisms: The Trident deterrent
The Trident nuclear deterrent, introduced in the 1980s, is assigned to Nato. Submarines are built at Barrow-on-Furness in Cumbria while the nuclear warheads, incorporating some US parts, are built at Aldermaston, near Reading.
The US-built missiles are leased to the Royal Navy but shipped back to the US for maintenance. When fired, the warheads can travel at 4 miles per second.
If replaced, the estimated cost of retaining and then decommissioning the current system, followed by procurement, replacement and maintenance of a newer system, is estimated at £100 billion (€147bn).
The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, proposed by Ireland, requires nuclear-armed countries to reduce and then liquidate nuclear stockpiles and non-nuclear countries to refrain from developing nuclear weapons.
Three trawlers off the Co Louth coast have had their nets mysteriously snagged and have been dragged backwards for up to 10 miles. However, for security reasons, the Royal Navy rarely admits to the presence of submarines in areas where such things have occurred.
In the Clyde estuary, submarines must now surface before leaving or entering port.
www.faslane365.org
