CND and Stop the War joined forces to protest the NATO summit in December 2019, organizing a demo and counter-summit.
Protesters gathering in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday 4th December, and marched to Buckingham Palace, gaining significant media coverage. Al Jazeera quoted Kate Hudson in their report on the protest:
Kate Hudson, secretary-general of the London-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), also spoke out against Trump pressuring member states to plough more funds into defence, describing an "undermining of national sovereignty over public spending decisions".
A few days before, the New World Disorder: No to NATO counter-summit brought together international speakers including writer and broadcaster Tariq Ali, Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, USA and Reiner Braun of the International Peace Bureau.
Tariq Ali stated ‘NATO is an offensive organisation, for which there is no real need whatsoever’, and recorded this short film for CND:
Workshops covered a wide variety of topics. Highlights included Conflicts, Climate Change and Militarisation, where panelists discussed how we organise for alternatives. Karl-Heinz Peil of the campaign Stop Air Base Ramstein, Germany, reported:
When we talk about the impact of the military on the environment, it’s not enough to talk about the greenhouse gasses troops emit, but to look at the entire industry - we can estimate that 15% of all industrial greenhouse gases are coming from the military.
Kurdish Activist Elif Sarakan spoke alongside Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK USA in the workshop titled Oil, War and the Middle East, analysing the latest developments. Chris Nineham of Stop the War was also on the panel:
The strategy has changed since the Iraq war - the West has moved towards creating alliances and proxy wars to keep on top of the region.
The closing panel outlined key actions to take forwards: link movements, keep lobbying, show how the money spent on war and weapons could go towards helping people and the environment.
