Rethinking Trident

By Jonathan Bartley

December 4, 2009

Ekklesia has long proposed that Trident replacement should be halted. Although the estimates about how much money this would save vary greatly [1], the figure is certainly in the tens of billions. It could possibly be as much as the entire annual NHS budget.

Churches have spoken up about this too including the Methodist Church, Church of Scotland, Baptist Church, Catholic Church and United Reformed Church. (You can see some articles here [2])

CND and Compass have now brought together a coalition of over 100 leading figures from across British public life to call for next week's Pre Budget Report to halt Trident replacement and re-deploy the resources saved to more socially useful areas. You can read the statement and add your name at http://www.rethinktrident.org.uk [3]

Launched earlier today with an article in The Independent [4], the coalition reconvenes the group first formed in the run-up to the 2007 Commons vote on Trident [5], which at the time was calling for further public and parliamentary debate.

The fact that an even broader coalition has now come together on the basis of outright opposition to Trident replacement shows how opposition to the plans has toughened but also widened. This isn't any longer about peace groups, but all those who can see that it makes sense in the current context of escalating public debt.