My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (24.02.2024) continuing the scrutiny of warmongering and rearmament. Since writing this (deadlines are Monday mornings), today – the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the French President Macron has stated his intention to place nuclear weapons in Ukraine…with Starmer likely to follow his lead (or is it Trump’s?). its time to protest against nuclear weapons – Marham, Suffolk, Saturday 28th February 2026.

Britain’s role as USA’s 5lst State is Proven

In military terms, Britain is undeniably, umbilically tied to the United States of America. There is a network of at least 19 US military bases across Scotland, Wales and England each assuming autonomous legal status as the blood and soil of Trump’s USA.
With Europe being coerced into developing a continental army to rapidly rearm, Britain’s long-perceived role as America’s 51st State is practically borne-out. The rapid rearmament of Germany is reducing its role as the USA’s second military carrier after the UK, whilst Britain expands its reliance on US power.
The primary evidence of this has to be the return of US nuclear warheads and infrastructure to these shores. All reports from observers prove that the US Air Force base at Lakenheath, Suffolk has now taken delivery of B61-12 nuclear bombs, only to be launched from here on the specific orders of the President of the United States. Yesterday, US F-22 “Raptor” fighters flew from there towards Iran without Starmer’s approval.
Down the road at Marham, Starmer is spending billions on refurbishing the Royal Airforce Base, ready to accommodate 12 nuclear-capable fighter jets, a significant expansion of Britain’s nuclear capabilities. This country will now be able to launch nuclear weapons from both the sea and sky.
Be clear, theses are American nuclear weapons. The Trident nuclear warheads and systems, supposedly ready to be launched within minutes from one of Britain’s four “independent” nuclear submarines, are actually owned and controlled by the United States.
Britain’s home-bred ultra-nationalists and xenophobes are wholly unperturbed by this, many wearing Make America Great Again caps as if staking their claim as part of Trump’s Republic! The contradictions are bizarre.
The far-Right criticise Starmer for not spending enough on the military and, in particular, nuclear weapons. In the face of rabid nationalist fervour Starmer is bound to back down from blocking Trump’s intention of utilising British bases in the bombing of Iran. Ours is a vassal State of US Imperialism, the Stars & Stripes the real Flag Force!
Plymouth’s Devonport MP, Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence Readiness & Industry, echoes his right-wing predecessor David Owen, SDP MP, in glorying Starmer’s ever expanding tax-investments in nuclear arms.
Starmer jumped to Trump’s command last week, increasing military spending by an additional £14bn a year, much of it on US equipment. Pollard and Owen sang the praises of Babcock, owners of the Devonport nuclear dockyard, about to receive a further £4.4BN of tax-payers money for increasing nuclear weapons readiness.
Devonport and neighbouring St Peters wards have the highest indicators of social deprivation in England, published on the Council’s website. One-in-Three of our children here live n poverty, the life-expectancy of a working class man some 14years lower than a professional living in Plympton.
Babcock’s profits (£73m last year) do not engorge Plymouth’s economy but get banked oversees, the well paid workers live and spend elsewhere. Following a 4.4BN bung, talk of 20,000 new jobs was a pie-in the-sky figure easily debunked by any scrutiny of similar claims made for Plymouth’s Freeport.
Britain’s Ocean City is about to be renamed, “Nuclear City”, Babcock taking over the city centre and University in pursuit of its nuclear military profiteering. At the same time as Starmer’s additional £14BN will be found from budget cuts to our crumble schools and hospitals and welfare benefits.
Trump has removed all Treaty safeguards from nuclear proliferation including nuclear weapons testing, and domestically ended rules on the safety of nuclear facilities, military and power plants alike. Expect the same here, soon. Forget any information on the impact to the environment of radiation leaks and nuclear accidents.
The end of a rules-based system for military conflict has now ensured a free-for-all. The increasing reliance on nuclear weapons in the face of a declining infrastructure of conventional weaponry and military forces makes us ever-more reliant on the threat and actual use of nuclear weapons.
That’s why we’re campaigning against all nuclear weapons, starting with any and all nuclear United States nuclear weaponry based in Britain. A delegation from Plymouth will be at the national protest at Marham on Saturday, opposing the purchase and basing of US nuclear-armed jets there. Join us: cnduk.org