SCOTLAND is on the front line of a new international arms race spurred on by a rise in frosty nuclear rhetoric. Just last month, the UK was declared to be “directly involved” in the Ukraine war, meaning HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane – only 25 miles outside Glasgow – could be seen as a “legitimate target”.
For the occupiers of Faslane Peace Camp, site-sitting over the festive period, action and awareness are needed now more than ever to pull us back from the brink of a nuclear winter just one year before the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
“I don’t like to celebrate this part of the year,” said Jag, a 63-year-old former infantry soldier, spending his first Christmas around the candle-lit communal area of the world’s longest-running peace camp.
“People get caught up buying all kinds of things they don’t need, and the important stuff gets swept aside.
“We are a legitimate target now.
"If the world continues the way it is with arms acceleration and proxy wars, there are only two possible outcomes – we abolish war, or war abolishes us.”
Dissatisfied with a stint working in insurance claims that followed his service in the Reconnaissance Corps, Jag found home six miles outside Helensburgh earlier this year at the UK’s last remaining nuclear protest camp.
Members of the encampment established in 1982 have previously performed lock-on protests, broken into a control room and even mounted a submarine at the Argyll and Bute naval base – home to Britain’s Trident nuclear programme.
“The trouble with places like this or anything in the activist world is that stuff goes out of fashion," Jag said.
"People talk about slow, incremental change and how violence is always the wrong option, but the only thing you get from sitting on the fence is splinters in your ass...”
Andy – a long-time activist and periodic resident at Faslane Peace Camp over the past 18 years said: “If it were to be left abandoned, it’s unlikely it would last long. There have been Christmases where I’ve sat here by myself and others when there were loads of us running up and down the site between every single oven we could find with trays of food.
“The place used to be hoachin’ when people could claim Housing Benefit for their caravans but since that stopped, there’s been a steady decline in the numbers staying here.”
Acknowledging the risk of dealing in nuclear currency, Pete Roche, director at Edinburgh Energy and Environment Consultancy, advocates for an energy system throughout Scotland and the UK that runs entirely on renewables.
The previous Greenpeace campaigner said: “It is perfectly feasible to run Scotland and the UK’s energy system on 100% renewables. This could save well over £100 billion by 2050 compared to business as usual.”
While the Faslane Peace Camp, occupiers admit the chances of waking up to a nuclear-free world or an all-out Armageddon are low, they maintain that the risk posed by Trident to Scotland cannot be ignored. The leading campaign group for nuclear disarmament in Scotland, Scottish CND, has focused its recent efforts on building support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which would comprehensively ban nuclear weapons.
Spokesperson Samuel Rafanell-Williams said: “In the scenario where Scotland was to become an independent country, it would have the opportunity to begin removing the UK’s nuclear capacity from Faslane.
“According to the work of the late [previous CND organiser] John Ainslie, this would take four years, and it is unlikely that the UK could commit the time or resources to build a new capability based in England.”
Outside of offering shelter to anarchists and activists alike, the stretch of colourful caravans and single-decker buses that make up the protest site also co-function as an accessible visitor centre, serving complimentary hot drinks with a slice of nuclear safety information.
“It’s about putting the tea into disarmament,” he said.
“There’s been an exponential rise in nuclear safety incidents It used to be that the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulations would publish its safety reports to appear transparent, but that’s now under the Official Secrets Act.”
Having witnessed an increase in the number of convoys carrying atomic warheads through Glasgow to the UK’s nuclear stockpile at Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport in recent years, there’s been a growing concern at the camp over the potential for a catastrophic mishap.
“Our fear is that one day there’s going to be an accident,” concluded Andy.
“It only needs to happen once.”
