PCS lambasts Trident replacement

Louise Nousratpour at TUC Conference, Bighton
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Morning Star

PCS delegates lambasted government plans to renew Trident nuclear weapons at an estimated cost of £76 billion on Thursday.

The civil servants' conference in Brighton attacked ministers' "shameless lies" about the necessity of privatisation and public-sector cuts to balance the books, while allocating billions to renew Trident nuclear missiles and fund illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Conference was urged to make a link between these issues and campaign with other unions to push for public money to be spend on building a world-class social system at home, not imperialist wars abroad.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka accused the government of having "political priorities" which were anti-working class and tipped in favour of war and big business.

Greater Manchester delegate Dave Vincent said: "It's absolute hypocrisy for the British government to threaten countries like Iran about their nuclear capability when we are about to renew ours.

"The £76 billion would be more usefully spent on education, health and pensions."

Mr Vincent praised the "bravery" of whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in jail for exposing Israel's secret nuclear weapons in 1986, as well as anti-nuclear protesters arrested for blockading Faslane naval base in Glasgow.

Some delegates expressed concerns that abandoning Trident would mean thousands of job losses for members working in Faslane and Coulport naval bases.

But conference promised to dedicate part of the campaign to push for alternative jobs, where these members can use their skills in socially useful sectors.

"The £85 million a year allocated by the Scottish Executive to renew Trident could be used to create over 3,000 jobs in the region," one delegate highlighted.

In a debate on the NHS, Harrow Branch delegate Mark Benjamin warned that over 12,000 jobs had been lost in the health service since April last year as bosses seek to save money.

"The privatisation is wasting the extra money put into the NHS on profiteers rather than patients," he said and encouraged PCS to "visibly" back local and national campaigns by health workers and their unions against these cutbacks and closures.