“We will blockade a base this weekend”
Tony Staunton, President of Plymouth Trades Union Council
11:01, 01 Apr 2026Updated 11:01, 01 Apr 2026
A number of F-35 jets take off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk last month(Image: James Linsell Clark/SWNS)
The illegal war on Iran is in its 4th week, upwards of two thousand Iranian civilians confirmed dead so far, 24,000 injured and over three million displaced.
Thirteen US military personnel killed and 300 injured. Iran has bombed Israel and Arab States in retaliation.
In the West the care and concern is for prices at the petrol pumps and for home heating, the wider implications obscured by immediate self-interest.
This latest war is not going to be resolved any time soon.
Throughout March 2026 the two nuclear-armed states of USA and Israel have been pounding nuclear energy installations holding deadly radioactive materials in Iran. There are growing threats to nuclear facilities as has been the case in Ukraine where nuclear power plants have been damaged. Nuclear installations are frontline targets in war, posing the greatest mass threat to civilians downwind of radioactive fallout.
In 2026, the Old World Order is well and truly dead. The new situation has been developed over decades, international agreements on nuclear arms reduction being eroded, disregarded or broken. Trump finally ended the New START Treaty last year despite the second major nuclear power, Russia, proposing its extension.
As a result we are seeing global nuclear proliferation, including by Britain.
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Local Plymouth MP and minister for military procurement, Luke Pollard, has recently extolled the virtues of huge new UK investments in the US Trident nuclear system, the nuclear weapons system leased to the UK. At least one quarter of the entire UK military budget is now dedicated to the nuclear weapons system owned and controlled by America.
Pollard suggests nuclear weapons are a deterrent never to be used. He argues that nuclear weapons represent jobs and prosperity and a power too horrific to be unleashed, ensuring national security. With one in three of our children living in poverty, where is this Peace dividend?
Unlike Pollard and Starmer, the majority of political leaders across the world understand the imminent threat from nuclear proliferation. Trump is not getting support from allies, governments defying Trump’s unbridled aggression. But Britain has fudged its direct involvement in Iran as “defensive support”, an unbelievable position. UK and US bases in Britain are launching attacks on Iran.
At RAF Fairford there are 21 bombers running bombing raids twice a day, dropping the same 20-30k bombs that Israel has been dropping on residential areas in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon. Loaded bombers are also flying from USAF Lakenheath nuclear-weapons base in Suffolk with the agreement of the UK government.
The Iran war is being used as a nationalist propaganda tool promoting UK’s massive rearmament programme and militarised culture, in preparation for wider war. Yet there is strong public opposition to both US bases and US nuclear weapons here. 65% of UK citizens oppose nuclear weapons and over 70% oppose the war in Iran.
The joint committee on the National Security Strategy published last Friday says Britain must delink from the US Trident weapons system and have an independent nuclear weapons system. In other words, build more nuclear weapons!
The government still hasn’t published its National Investment Plan due last year because of a £200billion shortfall – where are they going to get the money from for more nukes? Higher taxes and cuts to welfare services, of course.
Peace campaigners are building alliances calling on a rethink of the nuclear expansion. Anti-nuclear campaigners are protesting.
Our Peace Camp at USAF Lakenheath this week will demand the removal of all US nuclear weapons from Britain.
We will blockade the base this weekend, demanding Welfare not Warfare! No Nukes! US Bases off British Soil!