Switch R-R expertise away from nuclear

THE weekend of October 24-25 saw a momentous event, largely unreported, that could lead to a world free of nuclear weapons: hugely significant on a global level but also for us here in Derby with Rolls-Royce dependent on the contract for the new nuclear submarines.

We can’t leave highly skilled and expert workers at places like RollsRoyce high and dry. We need their skills to find some of the solutions to real security dangers. All political parties need to look at a planned shift away from nuclear that makes use of such valuable human resources.

The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty received its 50th ratification on October 24 and will now pass into international law. More countries are working through ratification – 122 countries have voted in the UN for a nuclear ban.

There is a wind of change in relation to nuclear weapons. Submarines can no longer “come unseen” since the development of underwater drones and military cyber hackers can return missiles before they hit their target. We know that a high-level assessment in 2016 identified the following as priority security concerns: climate change, terrorism, cyber crime – and a global pandemic. Even if they work, how does a nuclear missile protect us against any of these?

And what is the financial cost of the UK’s nuclear upgrade? £205 billion at the last count, essentially to keep the UK out there on the world stage. And now a treaty that makes the development and holding of nuclear weapons, like biological and chemical weapons before them, illegal.

Who will be the pariahs in the international community? Answer: the nuclear-armed nations.

But what a prize! No more nuclear convoys thundering up and down the M1 or into the R-R site on Raynesway, no increase in the number of lethally polluting scrapped submarines down in Plymouth. A world truly free of the threat (hidden but very real) of a nuclear holocaust balancing on the whims of nuclear-armed nations engaged in a lethal game of chicken

Viv Ring, Derby CND