A letter from Bruce Kent

Dear London CND supporter

It may not be usual to get a message from a London CND Vice President, however ancient, but this cause is a very good one which I absolutely support. We in CND have a great opportunity in front of us right now. It must not be missed.

The Afghanistan shambles has undermined much previous thinking about 'security '. Now is the time for us to get people to think again about nuclear weapons especially Trident, its massive cost, dangers, and threats to us all. Many things need to be done to stimulate and expand this new thinking.

But some initiatives cost money which is why I am asking urgently for your help. Below you can see how much London Region has already done – and then be as generous as you can.

Our year began with an online Annual Conference, with some stellar speakers, and included a breakout session aimed at students about military influences in UK universities. We launched our London’s Nuclear Ban Communities initiative at conference too and have followed up with monthly NBC meetings to discuss progress. We’ve also designed an NBC leaflet for national CND, to assist other groups collecting local support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

We’ve expanded the London Committee to get more of our local groups involved, and I’m pleased to say there’s been a steady take-up. Supported by London Region, CND groups in south east London got together to launch SE London Network for Peace, Justice, and Solidarity, and Richmond is looking to join forces with others in south west London. And I’m especially delighted to announce the birth of Lambeth CND which is already planning its second public event.

With the easing of Covid restrictions we’ve all begun in-person activities again. London Region has taken part in Kill the Bill protests, the Nurses Not Nukes contingent of the People’s Assembly demonstration and most recently in Parliament Square when MPs debated Afghanistan. I was really pleased we were able to hold our traditional Hiroshima Commemoration in Tavistock Square Gardens again this year and stream it live on Facebook for those who couldn’t attend in person. (I’m assured this latter attracted lots of people, though I’m glad to say I was at Tavistock Sq!)

We are now turning our attention to promoting local group activities – as you can see from London CND’s website and social media. Events are in the planning stage for London students as the new term gets underway; and I hope that my fellow London Vice President Catherine West MP will soon be able to hold another Students Parliamentary Reception, much delayed by Covid lockdowns.

As I said above, moving out of lockdown will cost money. We’ve already bought a shiny new banner to celebrate being out on the streets! And we’re starting to think about an in-person and internet streamed 2022 conference, despite big increases in hall-hire costs.

London CND is self-financing, relying on contributions from our generous and loyal supporters.

Please donate if you can, or better still make a regular financial commitment, by completing this form and returning it to London CND at:

London CND
162 Holloway Rd
London N7 8DQ

If you make a bank transfer, please reference it ‘Appeal’.

With warm wishes,

Bruce Kent

London CND Vice President

Letter to Christian leaders

Christian CND worker Russell has generously re-written our letter to religious leaders for a specifically Christian audience. Feel free to copy, edit and share this letter to promote the London Nuclear Ban Communities initiative in your locality!

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Dear [NAME ]

You may be aware that earlier this year the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into legal force. This means that nuclear weapons are now illegal under international law, just like chemical and biological weapons. More than 80 states have signed the Treaty and every continent is represented among those that have ratified. Last year 130 voted in support of it at the United Nations.l

Around the world Christians have been leading the efforts to bring the Treaty into law. The Holy See was one of the first states to sign and ratify the Treaty in 2017 and the church has been an active voice for disarmament around the world, including across the Pacific and throughout Africa. At home leaders in every major denomination have spoken out in favour of the ban and called on the UK government to engage with the process.

Despite this broad international support, the UK government not only opposes the Ban Treaty but is planning to increase our nuclear stockpile by more than 40%. As part of local efforts being made around the country, [I / We] write to seek your support for the London Nuclear Ban Communities initiative, which aims to lead the city of London to join the growing ranks of cities pledging their support for a global ban on nuclear weapons internationally. Those who have already done so include Manchester, Edinburgh, Paris, Geneva, Helsinki and Washington DC

Nuclear weapons are capable of murdering millions of innocent people by the press of a button. Were there ever to be a nuclear war our world would be changed beyond comprehension forever. People of all faiths across the world have hope for a better world where we can be rid of this threat.

You will find enclosed the London Nuclear Ban Communities Pledge, which you can also sign directly on our website: https://www.londoncnd.org/sign-the-pledge. You can either sign in a personal capacity or on behalf of your church.

[I /We] would be pleased to discuss this initiative and the Treaty further with you. Please get in touch at info@londoncnd.org. 

Yours in peace,

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Links

-        For Christian leaders, link Christian CND’s page on the Biblical case against nuclear weapons https://christiancnd.org.uk/the-biblical-case-against-nuclear-weapons/

-        For leaders of other faiths, link Religions for Peace (https://www.rfp.org/)

New leaflet! - Nuclear Ban Communities

London CND has produced a leaflet with Yorkshire CND, providing background and details about the Nuclear Ban Communities initiative. The leaflet has received the approval of CND for national use.

It is freely available to all CND groups. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like us to add your local group’s contact details at the end.

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Click on the buttons below to download the leaflet. We currently have two versions: one has the contact details of CND in the final contact box, and one is left blank for local groups to add their own contact details.

Download the leaflet…

No more nuclear trains through London?

By David Polden in Kick Nuclear August 2021

(…)[I]t was announced in June that both of Dungeness B’s two “advanced gas-cooled reactors”, out of operation since September 2018, were “beyond repair” and therefore would not re-open.

This means that the end of transport of highly radioactive “spent” fuel rods removed from power stations and sent by rail through London is in sight.  It takes around five years for a power station to be defuelled, that is for all the spent fuel rods to be removed and sent up to Sellafield by train through London to be stored or reprocessed.  So this last transport of spent nuclear fuel through London should cease around 2023.

At one time there were nuclear trains, usually weekly, carrying such spent fuel rods from four different places, running through London.  They ran from Dungeness, Bradwell, Sizewell and from the Continent, primarily from Germany, but also from Switzerland and Belgium. 

The trains carrying European waste were the first to stop running.  After the train ferry from Dunkirk to Dover stopped in 1980, the Channel Tunnel refused to allow nuclear trains to use it.  Continental spent fuel rods have since been sent by sea directly to Barrow for onward transport by train to Sellafield.  The editor has been unable to find out whether this transport is still running, especially given that Germany is in the process of closing down all its nuclear power stations by the end of 2022.

The second nuclear train to cease running through London was the one coming from Bradwell power station in Essex which closed down in 2002 and was decommissioned by 2005.  The third was the one from Sizewell A in Suffolk, which shut down in 2006, but was not fully defuelled till 2014.  This meant that nuclear trains ceased running, at least regularly, along the North London line then.

It is not certain that nuclear waste trains still don’t occasionally run through London, or will not resume regularly some time in the future.

Sizewell B pressurized-water reactor (pwr), which started operating in 1997 is planned to go on operating until 2055.  However it has always stored its spent fuel on-site, first in ponds and when existing ponds became full, in dry storage in casks.  I assumed this meant that none of the spent fuel from Sizewell B was sent to Sellafield.  However in research for this article, I read somewhere that “occasionally” nuclear trains travel from Sizewell B to Sellafield, though I now can’t find the reference for this.

It is also planned that at some indefinite point in the future a deep depository for all high-level nuclear waste in the UK will be built, so if such a plan is every carried out all such waste at Sellafield will be presumably be transported to it by train.

There are plans for two new pwr nuclear reactors each at Bradwell B and Sizewell C.  However such plans have been in existence since at least 2010 and building has yet to start at either site, and there are reasons to doubt that the currently planned two reactors at Bradwell B will ever be built (see Kick Nuclear, August 2021)

It is planned that if built, the spent nuclear fuel rods from each station will be stored on site for at least 100 years it's said to "cool down", before being transferred It's not quite clear whether this means the temperature or the level of radioactivity. If it's the temperature it surely would only take a few years at most. And since many of the radioactive elements the "spent" rods contain have half-lives of many thousands of years, the rods will still be highly-radioactive after 100 years. I suspect keeping the rods on-site for 100 years is a matter of kicking the problem of final disposal into the long grass, since no local authority has been found willing to host such a deep storage facility.

Statement on Afghanistan

The UK invaded Afghanistan in the1830s, 1870s, and again in 1919. The Soviets invaded in 1979, the US and it's NATO allies in 2001. Every time foreign forces have been driven out. Why can't our politicians learn the lessons of history?

The US spent over $2.25 trillion on its war in Afghanistan with the loss of over a quarter of a million lives. For what?

Parliament has reconvened to discuss Afghanistan but there's little hope politicians have learned the lessons of history. Only a few led by Jeremy Corbyn are calling for an end to military adventures like this.

CND and STW gathered outside parliament as today’s debate began to call for an end to foreign adventures like Afghanistan

Jeremy Corbyn, Richard Burgon, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Zara Sultana are taking Boris Johnson on over Afghanistan.

Remembering Hiroshima in Kingston

Kingston Peace Council/CND held a Hiroshima commemoration on August 6th 2021.

It started with a vigil with posters from 12 to 1pm at the Bentalls Centre, with Sarah and Tony from MPD (Musicians for Peace and Disarmament).

At 8.15 pm an assembly gathered by the river in Canbury Gardens Kingston for a short candlelit commemoration in the presence of the Mayor, Cllr Sushila Abraham, and her husband.

Remembering Hiroshima in Wimbledon

Sue Jones reports on the Wimbledon Disarmament Coalition/CND event commemorating the 76th anniversary of the nuclear bombing in Hiroshima.

‘We met, as we have done for many years, at Rushmere Pond on Wimbledon Common.  We were so lucky that the rain passed and it stayed dry, though windy.

Gill McCall set up our Peace Table near the pond, and conducted a Masterclass in making origami paper boats, with adults and children queueing up to make their own, each with a nightlight, for floating on the pond after the short ceremony.  Despite the wind, the candles on some of the boats stayed alight and they reached the far side of the pond.

‘Group member William Rhind led the proceedings. The Rev. Alison Judge, a local vicar, read from the Beatitudes -  'Blessed are the Peacemakers' was particularly relevant, and ended with the poem 'Let us be Midwives', by Sadako Kurihara.  Kevin O'Brien from Merton & Sutton Trades Council, and himself a former nurse, spoke about the obscene waste of money on Trident, and the increase in nuclear warheads, especially when NHS workers are being offered so little. 

Alison Williams read 'Chernobyl' by Fay Roberts, and William Rhind read ‘I come and Stand at every Door’ by Nazim Hikmet Ran, on behalf of our Chair, Maisie Carter. We were delighted that Maisie was able to be present. Having just celebrated her 94th birthday, she's our shining light!’

How to watch the London CND Hiroshima commemorations live

The event will be hosted by London CND co-chair Hannah Kemp-Welsh.

With...
Sabrina Francis, Mayor of Camden
Benali Hamdache, Green Party
Carol Turner, London CND co-chair
Jeremy Corbyn MP

And cultural programme including...
Rev Nagase, chant and drumming
Hugh Goodacre, songs
Raised Voices, choir

For those who can't attend the commemoration physically, we'll be broadcasting the full event live on London CND's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LRCND. You won't need a Facebook account: just open the page by clicking on this link at 12pm and the live video will appear when the commemoration begins.

Please get in touch with Julie at info@londoncnd.org if you have any queries.

'Japanese Against Nuclear' protest

Japanese Against Nuclear-UK, Kick Nuclear and CND members held protests at the Japanese Embassy in London and the Tokyo Electric Power Company's London Office on 30 July, to condemn the Japanese government's announcement that it will discharge Fukushima contaminated water into the Pacific.

Government-controlled TEPCO runs the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the site of what is widely regarded as the worst ever nuclear disaster in 2011, after an earthquake resulted in permanent damage to the plant’s reactors. Radioactive materials leaked into the air, soil, and sea, and around 156,000 people were displaced from a 30-kilometre exclusion zone around the power plant.

JAN organiser and London CND committee member, Shigeo Kobayashi said the decision 'ignores human rights and international maritime law’. The following statement was read out, in solidarity with the anti-nuclear movement in Japan and across the world:

‘The Japanese government has once again failed the people of Fukushima. The government has taken the wholly unjustified decision to deliberately contaminate the Pacific Ocean with radioactive wastes. It has discounted the radiation risks and turned its back on the clear evidence that sufficient storage capacity is available on the nuclear site as well as in surrounding districts. Rather than using the best available technology to minimize radiation hazards by storing and processing the water over the long term, they have opted for the cheapest option dumping the water into the Pacific Ocean.

‘Additionally, the nationwide federation of Japan Fisheries Cooperatives has continued to express its complete opposition to ocean discharge.

‘United Nations human rights special rapporteurs warned the Japanese government in June 2020 and again in March 2121 that discharging the water into the environment breaches the rights of Japanese citizens and its neighbours including Korea. They called on the Japanese government to delay any decision on discharging the contaminated water into the sea until the crisis of COVID-19 is over and appropriate international consultations are held.

‘Though the decision has been announced, it will take around two years before these discharges commence at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

‘Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director at Greenpeace International, said: “In the 21st century, when the planet and in particular the world's oceans are facing so many challenges and threats, it is an outrage that the Japanese government and TEPCO think they can justify the deliberate dumping of nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean. The decision is a violation of Japan's legal obligations under the United Nations Convention on the law of the Sea, (UNCLOS), and will be strongly resisted over the coming months”.’

Kingston Peace News - August 2021

You can read the August edition of Kingston Peace news here:

Articles include:

Reporting the government to the United Nations

CND is reporting the UK government to the United Nations for breaking international law. The UK government has announced it will increase the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal for the first time since the Cold War. A legal opinion commissioned by CND has confirmed this is a breach of international law. As a signatory to the UN’s nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the UK has committed to working towards disarmament. Instead, it is going the other way and getting more nuclear weapons, and during a pandemic no less! CND is reporting the UK to the President-designate of the upcoming NPT Review Conference – a significant international summit to monitor progress, or lack thereof, of the treaty. Visit our stall (see back page for dates) to sign the petition, or sign online at https://cnd.eaction.org.uk/ReportUKNPT CND are hoping to collect thousands of signatures to back their cause. The report and the signatures collected will be presented to the President-designate ahead of the NPT Review Conference, which is expected to take place in January 2022.