THE TORIES are meeting with stiff resistance to their plan to base four Trident nuclear submarines Coulport in Scotland.
-Widespread opposition mobilised Against Trident (SCAT), which held its by the Scottish second conference last Saturday. Among che actions it plans is a mass demonstration in Glasgow on Easter Sunday, 10 April.
The Trident project is expected to cost at least f8 billion of our money by the time it is completed. According to the government it is simply a replacement for the outdated Polaris system. In fact it is much more.
Unlike Polaris, The latest Mark II verstrike weapon. which the government is likely to sion, opt for, means that each sub would carry 16 D5 missiles, each in turn with 14 independently targettable warheads.
It could thus hit 224 separate targets. compared with the 16 for Polaris. Yet the government claims that this is not an increase in Britain's nuclear weapons at all, since the number of 'systems". or subat is being Campaien government.
because ty Russians.
Trident is a first and Strathclyde ference by Employees statistics are assembled to show a Sovict advantage in nuclear weapons.
Of course all this is justified in the name of defending "democracy". But this argument goes down none too well with local people who have seen their demand for a public inquiry ignored by the An inquiry 'would be too long drawn out, says the Navy chief at Colport. Commodore George Vallings •We have got to get on with Trident." Ah yes otherwise democratic freedoms will be threatened by those nasIt is now being suggested that the local authoritics in Dumbarton district region, who have already broken off all cooperation with the project, should organise their own public inquiry in the New Year. Support for this was urged at the SCAT conNational Union of Public delegate Norman Lockhart, as a way of getting out the facts about Trident to the widest possible audience in the burla-up to the Easter demo Lockhart also proposed thai SCAT consider following this up later in the year with a Scoutish Assembly against Trident, which would bring together as representative as possible a gachering of the vast opposition which exists to the government's plans.
Such public campaigning was seen as essential for the direct action that will undoubtedly be needed to stop Trident when development of the site begins.
Organising in the trade unions to boycott all work on the project will be the key to this. Rolls-Royce shop steward Fred Parry annonced that a specia. trade union conference against Trident will be held in February as a first step in mobilising labour movement support for the campaign The Tories have a fight on their hands over Trident. Its only justification is to back up Reagan in raising the nuclear stakes and bringing worldwide destruction nearer. And that is something which the working people of Scotland have no interest whatsoever Further details of the campaign can be obrained from SCAT, Ground Floor, 146 Holland Street, Glasgow G2.
support ALMOST SINGLEHANDEDLY EP Thompson the movement against the agreements. . But our se
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marines, will remain the same! Such is the phoney basis on which cold war