Starmer faces mass opposition against nuclear arms escalation
F35 fighters on the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, in Plymouth, DevonSIR KEIR STARMER’S militarism faces mass opposition after he announced today that the government is to buy 12 new fighter jets capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The Prime Minister used the Nato summit in The Hague to break the news, which campaigners called a breach of Britain’s obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The new aeroplanes and nuclear weapons will be US-built but flown by RAF crews, based at RAF facilities in East Anglia and assigned to the Nato nuclear mission.
Under the plan, Britain will buy 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional munitions and also the B61-12 gravity bomb, which is three times more powerful than the weapon dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
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In the Commons, independent MP Jeremy Corbyn demanded that ministers explain how the decision complied with treaties “which require nuclear weapons states not to allow proliferation and take steps towards nuclear disarmament.”
The Stop the War Coalition asked: “On what planet does buying F-35s for around £80 million each from the US company Lockheed Martin equal job creation at home while cutting welfare?”
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament general secretary Sophie Bolt called the planned purchase a “disastrous decision by the Starmer government that makes the world more dangerous and puts the British population on the nuclear front line.”
She pledged mass action against the deployments.
“The millions that will be spent on these jets, and the millions more that would be needed to upgrade RAF Marham, will be coming out of further cuts to public services, to our NHS and our social care system,” Ms Bolt said.
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