Wednesday 20 June 2012

Carwyn Jones offers Wales as Nuclear Target



Carwyn Jones seems to be be offering Wales as a base for Nuclear Weapons.
Mr Jones had been asked during First Minister’s Questions about the potential to invest in Welsh ports responded:
“I did notice the Scottish Government no longer wishes to have the nuclear submarine base at Faslane, it no longer wishes to house the UK naval nuclear fleet. There will be more than a welcome for that fleet and those jobs in Milford Haven.”
This is a disgraceful move by our First Minister . But is somewhat typical of Labours attitude to Nuclear Weapons.

Those who remember CND in the 80's when cruise missiles were being imposed on the UK by the USA . Saw Labour MPs like Neil Kinnock and future ones like Peter Hain addressing us at Rallies where they had marched of earlier. Plaid and the others were usually at the back  in front . Telling us " Only a Labour Government could stop Nuclear expansion". .

A few notable exceptions like Paul Flynn carried on campaigning once they got into power but most quietly dropped their previous convictions

In 1982 every council  in Wales in signed a declaration of a Nuclear Free Wales .

I remember a rally at a Plaid Conference when the Historian  E P Thomson  the  author of the seminal work "The Making of the English Working Class "and  the  1980 Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament, calling for a nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal, which was the founding document of European Nuclear Disarmament. Congratulating Wales on being the first to declare itself Nuclear Free 


It may have been only a gesture but for many who who were concerned about the continuing expansion of the e Nuclear Arsenal through the world it was a small ray of hope.


CND no longer has effect on the public imagination and perhaps it is significant that its former Chair at the time of its greatest popularity  joan Ruddock became a Labour MP   in 1987 although she had resigned in 1985.
I have no doubt Paul Flynn will condemn Carwyn  Jones' s statement . But how many other Labour AM , MPs and councillors will also do so?


I wonder what their reaction from Labour party quarters  would have been if his words have come from Tory Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gililan?





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