NHS Not Trident - 30 May 2015 - Manchester Royal Infirmary

Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group joined hundreds of campaigners from across Greater Manchester on Saturday (30 May 2015) in a call to “Keep Our NHS Public”. At the rally held at the gates of Manchester Royal Infirmary campaigners from groups including the People’s Assembly, ‘Save Our NHS’ and NHS staff and patients united to show their support for the NHS. Padlocks, covered in reasons why individuals love the NHS, were secured to the gates of MRI to symbolise the aim of ‘Locking-out Privatisation’ from the NHS and in celebration of everything a truly public NHS does for people on the basis of their medical needs. It formed part of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity’s National day of action, while Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament members promoted the message “NHS NOT Trident” on their placards and T-shirts.

Philip Gilligan on behalf of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group said,

“Peace Group members and supporters are clear that there is one cut that does need to be made. We need to cut the vast amounts of money being spent on the Trident nuclear weapons system and to bring an end to the madness of squandering even more money on an even more dangerous and unnecessary nuclear weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, we are committed to the campaign against austerity. We need to be spending more money on public services like our NHS and adult social care, not less, and we need to protect our public services from creeping privatisation.  We need to secure our NHS services and ensure that they are not undermined by those who seek to make a profit from the sick. In Rochdale, we have already seen a serious erosion of our local hospital services under successive governments. Now, hospitals across Greater Manchester are under huge amounts of pressure. Patients wait hours to be seen and hospital targets are not being met. Further cuts will only increase the problems. The government needs to spend our taxes on improving these services not on developing ever more dangerous nuclear missiles”

'Vote Out Trident' says Peace Group

On Saturday morning (25 April 2015), twelve days before the general election, Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group braved the rain in Yorkshire Street, Rochdale to urge people to use their votes to bring an end to Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system.

They were supported by the Green party candidate for the Rochdale constituency, Mark Hollindrake who confirmed his agreement with the view that "the next government should scrap its nuclear weapons rather than replace them with a new system and that the money saved should be spent on things such as education, social care and the NHS."  

On behalf of the Peace Group, Philip Gilligan said:

"A majority of people in Rochdale have made it clear, time and again, that they think it would be a ridiculous and very dangerous mistake to spend £100,000,0000,0000 on replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapon system and they want their MPs to take that same message to Westminster after 7th May 2015. Whatever the final composition of the government, it is clear that our country cannot afford to squander £billions on useless nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear missiles do not keep us safe. In fact, they put all our lives at risk and threaten our planet with total destruction. We need MPs who will vote against nuclear weapons of mass destruction and who will ensure that the money saved will be spent on the services we need." 

Rae Street reports on US Tour

Rae Street from Hare Hill Road Littleborough gave fellow anti-nuclear campaigners a full report on her recent visit to the USA on Wednesday night (22 April 2015) at the monthly meeting of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group. Rae had been invited to New York to help launch the new Interference Archive exhibition which features artefacts, posters and photographs from the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp together with interviews with Greenham veterans. These include interviews recorded with Rae Street and Maggie Muir in Littleborough last year. Both are veterans of the successful campaign to remove US Cruise nuclear missiles from the Greenham Common base in the 1980s.

From New York, Rae moved-on to California where she joined old friends like Gwyn Kirk, Judith le Blanc, Jackie Cabasso and others at a number of peace events, including a demonstration against the enormous amounts of money allocated to military expenditure by the government of the USA.

Rae Street said:

“It was great to meet old friends from the USA who had been so supportive of our successful campaign to get Cruise missiles removed from Greenham Common, and it is always a delight to be reminded that the peace and anti-nuclear movement is alive and well in the USA. We hear too little in the British media about the very active campaigns against the Trident and other nuclear weapons on the other side of the Atlantic. Trident, including the UK’s so-called ‘independent deterrent’, is a system very much in the control of the US government and many in the USA recognise that it is dangerous, immoral and ineffective. Like most people in Rochdale, they know that far from protecting anyone, nuclear missiles threaten to destroy our world.”

'People Not Trident'

Rochdale and littleborough Peace Group joined fellow campaigners from Greater Manchester and District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmanent (GMDCND) on the streets yesterday (11 April 2015) urging people to think about the issue of nuclear weapons when they vote on 7 May 2015. They highlighted the fact that current plans to replace the Trident nuclear missile system will cost the country a staggering £100 billion (£100,000,000,000) and noted that the government already spends £6.6 million a day on nuclear weapons. They described this as "an appalling waste" and stressed that cancelling the Trident replacement would release around £100 billion which could be spent on healthcare, education, housing and energy, which they described as "the things we need".

Philip Gilligan, on behalf of the Peace Group, said:

"With the final vote on Trident replacement due in 2016, at an estimated cost of £100bn, this is the final election before the decision – and it is one which requires a higher level of debate than we are seeing at the moment. Senior military figures warn that the £100bn white elephant of Trident replacement does nothing to keep us safe. How a blind commitment to squandering our overstretched national resources on an outdated weapon of mass destruction can be touted as being "strong on defence" is beyond me.

It's time to ensure that we vote only for parliamentary candidates who are opposed to so-called 'Trident Replacement'. It's time for the Conservatives and Labour to wake up to the huge public opposition to Trident. It's time to scrap Trident, save £100bn, and spend it on things we really need."

Peace Group marks anniversary of nuclear disaster recorded by Rochdale artist

Members of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group paused during their regular monthly meeting on Wednesday evening (11 March 2015) to remember the ongoing suffering of the thousands of children and families affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. On the fourth anniversary of the meltdown of three of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan on 11 March 2011, they discussed the work of the ‘Strong Children Japan’ project founded by Littleborough-born artist Geoff Read and reiterated their call for a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power-plants.

On behalf of the group, Rae Street said,

“The stories of individual children affected by the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi bring home very vividly the dangers posed to us all, our children and our grandchildren by nuclear power plants. It is chilling to remember that Heysham is only 42 miles from Rochdale, especially when we know from viewing Geoff Read’s blogs that in Japanese cities like Koriyama, which is about the same distance west of Fukushima, levels of radiation were so high that most parents and schools could not allow their children to play outside at all, even though soil had been removed from many school grounds. In Koriyama, they wear long sleeves and face masks when outside, and avoid the rain. Naoya aged 8 years who lives there and who drew one of the pictures we looked at, said very poignantly "It’s sad for me that there are nuclear plants near Koriyama.", while 6 year old Hanako from Fukushima City drew a picture of the swing in the children’s playground which is surrounded by a barrier to stop the children using it because of the contamination. Hanako’s mother wrote “The earthquake on March 11 caused the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and high levels of radiation have been leaking since then. We can still detect cesium in many areas around Fukushima. We all have no idea how Fukushima children’s health will be in the future.”

For more information on the ‘Strong Children Japan’ project, please see http://strongchildrenjapan.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/age%200-5

Betty Tebbs - veteran Greater Manchester peace & anti-nuclear campaigner -

Rochdale peace campaigners help close nuclear bomb factory

Three members of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group travelled the 200 miles to Berkshire yesterday (2 March 2015) to support the blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield, near Aldermaston. Mai Chatham, Pat Sanchez and Philip Gilligan from Littleborough joined hundreds of other anti-nuclear protesters from around the country who blockaded all three entrances to facility which develops warheads for the Trident nuclear weapons system. The blockade started at 07:00 GMT and also included protesters from France and Finland. Action AWE, which organised the "Burghfield Lockdown", said the protest aimed to bring "work on Trident warheads to a halt". Campaigners locked themselves to each other and to concrete blocks and were successful in stopping all traffc in and out of the area where new buildings are being constructed.

Pat Sanchez said " We were delighted to do something to slow down production of these dangerous and evil weapons of mass destruction. They threaten all of us and our planet on a daily basis. If used they will destroy us all. We need to scrap them now. We need to stop squandering £billions on ways to destroy our world and to use these wasted resources for the services we urgently need. We need these £billions for our NHS, to bulid homes, for schools and social care services. We should not be wasting them on nuclear weapons that threaten all our futures.