The threat made by Tony Blair at Labour Party conference that he might press ahead with an expansion of Britain's nuclear power programme must be fiercely resisted and combined with both the fight against climate change, and the fight to prevent Trident nuclear submarines being replaced.
Currently Britain has 16 functioning nuclear power plants of which half are operated by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) and half by British Energy. Those operated by BNFL are due to close by 2010 and those operated by British Energy by 2023. No new plants have been built for more than ten years.
BNFL, who have already announced The idea that plans to sell of their
such US-based Westinghouse site dangerous (which employs technology 1400 people at a
could be reactor fuel production facility near privatised is Preston as well) are terrifying now mooting the idea of ditching their generating, reprocessing and clean-up operations.
The fact that the industry is currently at a low ebb and BNFL made a loss of £70 million last year is clearly the driving force behind these plans.
The idea that such dangerous technology could be privatised is terrifying. Sixteen million people are still suffering the effects of the most serious nuclear power accident ever at Chernobyl in 1986. The transport of spent nuclear fuel is also highly dangerous.
Blair argued that a successful energy policy required "an assessment of all the option, including civil nuclear power". He referred to the "serious" threat posed by global warming and warned that the developed world could not afford to rely on "unstable regions" for its energy supply.
Trade Minister Alan Johnson in an interview with the BBC's Sunday AM on October 2 referred to the example of Finland which has recently approved the construction of a new nuclear power station which it hopes will allow it to
meet its greenhouse gas emissions and argued that there "environmentalists are to a large degree now supportive of He said that the government will publish its proposals next year and there would then be "a public
Given that New Labour has consistently shown its lack of terest in poonic opinion — De it on pensions, the heath service, or the war on Iraq, we need to ensure the biggest possible mobilisations to ensure they cannot saddle us with such a dangerous legacy - cynically using the very real threat of global warming to sell it to us. will have been increased further by the high-profile bully-boy tactics in seeking to gag veteran UND campaigner Walter Wolfgang, which eventually produced only a belated, unconvincing and cosmetic apology.
Many of those still nominally in the party have effectively switched off from any engagement with it: constituency parties struggle to mobilise even a skeleton crew for election campaigns, while a third of CLPs sent no delegates to this year's conference.
Other CLPs were 'represented' by tame Blairite stooges installed by regional officers. Two thirds of Labour MPs stayed away. The hall was emptier than any time in recent memory.
The rot was clearly revealed by the card vote on UNISON's motion opposing the "creeping" (more accurately galloping) privatisation OI the while almost 100 percent of union votes supported the motion, just 47 percent of constituency votes backed the unions in fighting this most controversial of New Labour policies.
The motion was carried, as were three other motions challenging key planks in New Labour policy - with calls for new laws to legalise secondary strike action, a rejection of the drive to privatise council housing, and Labour - reminded us that they were themselves simply going through a ritual with little serious intent. The
No hecklers please:
bouncers wre on hand to protect warmonger Straw, privateer Hewitt and benefit slasher Blunkett