Dreams of Peace
Written for the Birmingham Post, but not published
7 July 2009
On Saturday, I caught a train from Birmingham to Harrogate to attend a 4th July demonstration outside the US base at Menwith Hill. There have been weekly protests there since the 1980s and especially on American Independence Day, calling for American to remember its own struggle for independence and for Britain to develop an independent foreign policy.
There were a few hundred people present about a third of whom were Quakers.There was a coach from Sheffield and groups of people from Leeds and Bradford. There was a threat of rain which somehow passed us by, and then a lovely evening of pure light and a glow of red as the sun began to set over the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. Roy Bailey, the folk singer, whom I had not heard for some years, sang moving songs about memories of Paschendale and the Diggers of 1648 wanting to make the world a common treasury for all.
The compere was a local Quaker doctor. He read out a set of letters between himself and the commander of the base, who would not reply or agree to meet with local people. He said the base was very secretive, but they thought it was part of the system which planned to erect a missile defence system over Europe. The danger of this plan is that more countries will fear that America has the technology to prevent missiles penetrating and therefore will be more likely to use a nuclear weapon because it will cease to fear retaliation. As I said in my speech, Britain currently has a nuclear weapon, targeted at no-one and no other country in the world is targeting us. But both New Labour and the Conservatives agree that the future is so uncertain that Britain must have a new weapon system. The Liberal Democrats are reviewing their position, but Ming Campbell, who is leading their review, said recently that he has always thought Britain should keep a nuclear weapon as an insurance policy. The trouble with this is that on the same basis every country in the world needs a nuclear weapon. Iran for example says that all it wants is civil nuclear power which it is entitled to because it has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which guarantees access to civil nuclear power if states give up the right to weapons. But there is no doubt that Israel, which did not sign the non proliferation treaty, is targeting Iran with its considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons. And almost without doubt the US is, too. I hate nuclear weapons, but if I was Iran I would want one, never to use, but to prevent an Israeli attack. But if Iran gets nuclear weapons, then Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States will demand them too. And then we will see dangerous nuclear proliferation in the most unstable region of the world. This would make the use of nuclear weapons very much more likely.
The other point I made in my speech on that glorious evening looking out over the Yorkshire moors was that the real threat to our future is global warming, environmental shortages, an angry Middle East and a growing mass displacement of millions of people as agriculture is disrupted by climate change and some of the poorest countries are unable to feed their people. We will either deal with this with war and bitter division, or by creating a more evenly developed world, capable of working together to overcome the crisis.If the technology that goes into this weaponry could be redeployed to create new forms of energy and more sustainable ways of living, we could manage the coming crisis. Britain could be a really useful country if it worked for this kind of world order. Instead, we humiliate ourselves by following American wherever it leads. We were happy to follow Bush and now Obama without even a discussion of what has changed.
Of course I prefer Obama. He is an impressive man, concerned for non proliferation and peace in the Middle East. But I fear that he is likely to fail unless Europe changes tack and makes it easier for him to make progress in the Middle East. Outside Menwith Hill, it was easy to dream of a different role in the world for Britain which could really help to make the world a safer place.
