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CND opposes new contract to build nuclear reactors on Anglesey.

COMMENT Just by the way, in this new Trumpian era, our nuclear sites become a useful weapon for an enemy – an appealing target to be attacked

David Nicholson

Anti-nuclear campaigners have condemned plans to build small modular
reactors (SMRs) at Wylfa on Anglesey, dismissing claims that they will
bring energy independence as a “fantasy” today.

CND Cymru commented
after contracts to construct Britain’s first SMRs in north Wales were
signed. Anglesey was selected last year to become the site of the SMR
programme by the Labour government at Westminster.

CND Cymru national
secretary Dylan Lewis-Rowlands said: “Nuclear power does not deliver
energy independence. Wales doesn’t mine fissile material, lacks the
ability to enrich it and convert it into fuel, and has no storage capacity.
“We need to end the corporate nuclear fantasy and focus on the
deliverable solutions that can be done quicker, cheaper and placed in the
hands of communities — that is how we truly make Wales energy
independent.”

 Morning Star 13th April 2026, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cnd-opposes-new-contract-build-nuclear-reactors-anglesey

April 17, 2026 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

27 April –  Bangor University UK  Dr David Toke talks on Chernobyl & Fukushima

Come to Neuadd Rathbone, College Road, Bangor University, Monday evening
27 April at 6:00 pm to a special meeting organised by CADNO/PAWB to note
that 15 years have passed since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and 40
years since the nuclear explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in
Ukraine which led to many European countries being polluted, including
Cymru. Photographs taken by the photographer Lis Fields of the effects of
the Fukushima disaster will be on display and we hope to have her company
online. The evening’s main speaker will be the campaigning academic, Dr
David Toke from Aberdeen University. David has written extensively about
the dangers of nuclear power and its extortionate cost. He also has strong
warnings for us about modular nuclear reactors such as the one Rolls Royce
wants to build at Wylfa

 PAWB 10th April 2026, https://www.stop-wylfa.org/

April 14, 2026 Posted by | Events, UK | Leave a comment

Tony Blair’s latest deceit-riddled column vilifies the UK left to justify genocide

Britain former PM shows there’s no price to be paid for engineering mass slaughter in the service of western empire. Which is why those crimes not only continue, but grow in scale

Jonathan Cook, Apr 08, 2026

Tony Blair, the man who led Britain into a disastrous and illegal war on Iraq more than 20 years ago based on false information, is still very much a sought-after commentator in the UK media.

His regular political pronouncements are treated as pearls of wisdom; his columns as consequential insights from a globe-striding elder statesman.

Even his leading role on Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, the US president’s panel of autocrats seeking to elbow the United Nations – and international law – off the world stage, appears to have done little to dent his claim to moral authority.

Blair, more than anybody, illustrates the capacity of western leaders – with the help of a complicit establishment media – to rewrite their criminal past and escape accountability in perpetuity.

The former British prime minister’s latest political intervention is a lengthy, and typically repugnant, article published by the Sunday Times newspaper. It effectively blames “the left” for an arson attack last month on four ambulances owned by a Jewish charity in London.

No, Blair hasn’t unearthed any startling new information tying leftwingers to the attack. His article is a pure disinformation – propaganda designed to malign those critical of Israel.

More on that in a moment.

But as a prelude, let us note that there are many terrible things going on in the world right now that might be considered more pressing for Blair to write about than the torching of a handful of ambulances: whether it be a genocide in Gaza – where Israel destroyed not just four ambulances but the enclave’s entire health sector – or an illegal, joint US-Israeli war on Iran that has similarly targeted medical centres and other civilian infrastructure.

Twisted logic

Blair once served as a Middle East envoy to an international body known as the Quartet. In that role, he spent several years shuttling futilely between his eponymous institute in London and Israel and the Palestinian territories.

There are, however, two self-evident reasons why Blair may have been averse to dedicating his latest column to the catastrophes unfolding in the Middle East.

First, because his close allies – the leaders of the US and Israel – are indisputably the ones committing the crimes of genocide and aggression respectively in Gaza and Iran.

And second, because Blair was himself responsible for launching, alongside the US, a war of aggression on Iraq in 2003.

But it is not just that Blair is in no position to moralise on matters of the utmost global importance.

He has made it his primary duty in public life to excuse the West’s supreme crimes – crimes that, were there meaningful accountability for western leaders, would necessitate that he stand trial at the international war crimes court in the Hague.

That is the context for understanding both why Blair penned his column on the arson attack in London and the twisted logic that underpins his argument in that article.

Dirty war

Anyone who has studied Blair’s back-catalogue of opinion pieces will hardly be surprised by the Sunday Times headline: “We must end left’s unholy alliance with the Islamists.”

Or its subhead: “Parts of the left cast Jewish communities as supporters of Israel and Jews become ‘fair game’.”

Although the article ostensibly concerns an arson attack on a Jewish community ambulance service in London, Blair has much larger – carefully veiled – ambitions.

This is his latest manoeuvre in a dirty war to silence and crush Britain’s progressive left – waged by those, like Blair, who duplicitiously claim both to belong to that left and to serve as its natural leaders.

Blair is central to a cabal of so-called Atlanticists who view the world in Manichean terms, as “a clash of civilisations” between a supposedly superior, enlightened Judeo-Christian West, led by the US, and a backward, primitive Islamic East, now, it seems, led de facto by Iran.

Israel is presented as a first line of defence against this dangerous “Muslim” enemy.

Everything for Blair is seen through this racist prism.

He would sound more obviously like some Victorian, pith-helmeted empire-builder were it not for the fact that his fundamental, and fundamentalist, worldview continues to be shared by the entire UK ruling class, including the billionaire-owned media and the main political parties.

And for good reason. A Britain belonging to a “superior” West can openly aid Israel’s genocidal campaign of carpet-bombing and starvation in Gaza, and loan air bases to assist the US in its illegal war of aggression on Iran, and still pretend to itself that this is all being done “defensively”.

Christendom is still, apparently, “defending” itself against the rampaging barbarian hordes.

Achilles’ heel

In fact, Blair’s column in the Sunday Times should be seen as another front in a continuing war being waged by British prime minister Keir Starmer – a disciple of Blair – on the Corbynite left.

Their joint aim is to shepherd back into the Atlanticist fold a Labour party that supposedly lost its way under Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn’s crime was to have taken Labour towards internationalism – and the prioritising of human rights for all, not just westerners. That project necessarily entailed treating British Muslims as an integral part of British society, no less than British Jews.

Corbyn’s politics were an ideological assault on – and continue to pose a threat to – the Blair-Starmer worldview.

In other words, Blair’s article is part of a running battle – as the British establishment’s claim to moral authority is steadily eroded by its collusion in Israeli and US crimes – to prevent the progressive left ever reviving its political fortunes.

With the help of the Israel lobby, Blair and his ilk believe they have identified the achilles’ heel of a British left determined to highlight a brutal US-led western imperialism and its inherent hypocrisies.

The goal is to crop out the left’s increasingly persuasive critique of US imperialism and zoom in instead on the left’s parallel criticisms of Israel: its apartheid rule over Palestinians, its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, and its genocidal campaign of destruction in Gaza.

Blair wishes to wave all this away, as if wielding a magic wand, by labelling it as “antisemitism”.

After that move worked so successfully in fatally wounding Corbyn as Labour leader, Blair and Starmer assume the same smear can be repurposed more generally – in this case, to implicate an undefined “left” over the torching of a handful of ambulances.

It goes without saying, that in prioritising the suppression of the left’s critiques of western imperialism, Blair and Starmer are leaving the door wide open to a resurgence by the far-right – which indeed is antisemitic.

That should serve as a reminder that Blair, Starmer and the rest of the British establishment have no real concern for the welfare of the Jewish community they profess to be protecting.

If the Jewish community turns out to be collateral damage in their war on the left, then so be it.

‘New antisemitism’

In the article itself, Blair argues that a so-called left-wing antisemitism “is a pernicious and novel development in progressive politics: the alliance with Islamists”.

First, notice the sleight of hand. British Muslims who, quite reasonably, are deeply critical of Israel because its army has been committing for decades war crimes with impunity against their extended families are reduced here simply to “Islamists”.

Blair is doing to Muslims precisely what he accuses – falsely – the left of doing to Jews. He is conflating Muslims, a religious group, with Islamists, champions of an extreme political ideology…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Blair appears to be excusing Israel’s starvation of the 2.3 million people of Gaza, half of them children.

According to Blair, no one, not even the progressive left, should be allowed to criticise an Israeli siege that has blocked food, water, fuel and medicines to Gaza – unless they first justify that blockade as essential to Israel’s “security”.

Again, maybe he needs to have a word with the judges of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Because they are seeking Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, on charges of crimes against humanity over his efforts to starve Gaza’s population……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What Blair wants is for the left to be utterly silenced so that its protests do not rouse uncomfortable twinges of guilt forcibly reminding him that long ago he became a soulless creature of the West’s war machine.

It is not just that Blair has faced no consequences for his criminal undertaking in Iraq. He has instead become fabulously wealthy, venerated by western establishments, and an oracle for an equally complicit, billionaire-owned media…………………………… https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/blairs-latest-deceit-riddled-column

April 13, 2026 Posted by | media, UK | Leave a comment

Making London councils allies in the campaign to oppose Britain’s nuclear expansion

7 Apr 26, https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/making-london-councils-allies-campaign-oppose-britains-nuclear-expansion

As weapons return to Suffolk and defence spending soars, London CND is pressing local candidates to oppose nuclear expansion and support the UN ban treaty. SALLY SPIERS explains.

LONDON Region CND has launched a campaign to make London nuclear weapon-free. There are compelling reasons for local council candidates to oppose the expansion of Britain’s nuclear weapons by promising to sign up to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

US nuclear weapons have returned to Britain for the first time since their complete removal in 2008. These weapons have been sited at US air base Lakenheath in Suffolk, approximately 75 miles from London. The majority of voters are opposed to US nuclear weapons being stationed in the UK, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.

In addition, Keir Starmer has announced Britain is buying 12 nuclear-capable jets (F-35As) from the United States. These are equipped to carry and fire the same nuclear weapons that are based at Lakenheath.


These weapons will not in any way be an independent nuclear deterrent. The US president must authorise the use of these missiles. Buying them and having them on our territory meshes us even deeper into US foreign policy.

We have all witnessed President Donald Trump threatening Nato countries to get them to enter a crazy illegal war of his making. US foreign policy is aggressive, expansionist, threatening to its allies and it is highly unpopular with British people.

We cannot believe for one minute these jets and weapons will protect the security of the people of these islands.

Given the proximity to London, it seems more likely they actually constitute a threat to Londoners from either attack or accident. Councils have a duty to ensure their residents are safe. Opposing Britain’s nuclear expansion and supporting the TPNW is an obvious first step in fulfilling this duty.

And then there’s the cost. The nuclear capable jets that Britain is buying are estimated to cost £80 million each, almost £1 billion in total. When he first announced the increased spending on defence, John Healey argued the money would secure British high-skilled jobs.

Whether you are convinced by this argument or not, it is clear that this £1bn is going to secure high-skills jobs in Indianapolis where the jets will be built, not Britain.


LONDON Region CND has launched a campaign to make London nuclear weapon-free. There are compelling reasons for local council candidates to oppose the expansion of Britain’s nuclear weapons by promising to sign up to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

US nuclear weapons have returned to Britain for the first time since their complete removal in 2008. These weapons have been sited at US air base Lakenheath in Suffolk, approximately 75 miles from London. The majority of voters are opposed to US nuclear weapons being stationed in the UK, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.

In addition, Keir Starmer has announced Britain is buying 12 nuclear-capable jets (F-35As) from the United States. These are equipped to carry and fire the same nuclear weapons that are based at Lakenheath.

These weapons will not in any way be an independent nuclear deterrent. The US president must authorise the use of these missiles. Buying them and having them on our territory meshes us even deeper into US foreign policy.

We have all witnessed President Donald Trump threatening Nato countries to get them to enter a crazy illegal war of his making. US foreign policy is aggressive, expansionist, threatening to its allies and it is highly unpopular with British people.

We cannot believe for one minute these jets and weapons will protect the security of the people of these islands.

Given the proximity to London, it seems more likely they actually constitute a threat to Londoners from either attack or accident. Councils have a duty to ensure their residents are safe. Opposing Britain’s nuclear expansion and supporting the TPNW is an obvious first step in fulfilling this duty.

And then there’s the cost. The nuclear capable jets that Britain is buying are estimated to cost £80 million each, almost £1 billion in total. When he first announced the increased spending on defence, John Healey argued the money would secure British high-skilled jobs.

Whether you are convinced by this argument or not, it is clear that this £1bn is going to secure high-skills jobs in Indianapolis where the jets will be built, not Britain.

In mid-March, London Councils which speaks for all London authorities, described the financial situation of our councils as being “extremely challenging.” They “are grappling with a £1bn budget shortfall this year.”

How can prospective councillors not question the expenditure on nuclear-capable jets? There cannot be a single council in this country that has the resources to mend potholes effectively. Our councils need that money to provide basic services that keep the capital functioning.

Incredibly, neither decision — bringing US nukes back nor expanding our own nuclear capabilities — has been debated in Parliament. War is most definitely on people’s minds. Last year, voters identified defence as the fourth-most important concern for them.

The only way this concern seems to be discussed is in terms of increased spending on defence. But these important matters could be discussed in council chambers if councillors were willing to consider signing up to the TPNW or even making their mayors a mayor for peace.

This would send an important message to the government that is entirely in line with the view of the majority of the British public.

There is movement. It seems likely Green candidates will support the TPNW at council level. Labour candidates must be feeling the burn from the Greens and other parties. Supporting the TPNW will be a popular move with voters and Labour candidates would be foolish to ignore it.


London CND is asking voters to write to their council candidates to urge them to sign their support for the TPNW.

Councils and individual councillors can sign the cities pledge of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, the authors of the TPNW.

Mayors can sign up to mayors for peace. Cities and mayors throughout the world, and particularly Europe, have already signed. What a coup it would be for peace if London and London Councils were to sign.


Further information on how to support the London CND campaign is available on the London CND website Make London Nuclear Free Campaign, “London’s TPNW Pledge” www.londoncnd.org.

Sally Spiers is vice-chair of London CND.

April 13, 2026 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

  Labour and SNP clash over nuclear power for Scotland amid Holyrood campaign. 

 Labour touts “stability” while SNP blasts “misguided” nuclear
plan. Torness power station — could nuclear become a key battleground
ahead of the May poll?

The SNP and Scottish Labour have traded barbs over
energy policy as the debate on new nuclear power in Scotland took centre
stage on the Holyrood campaign trail. It comes as the Scottish Greens
pledged to deliver 40,000 new green energy jobs in Scotland by the end of
the next Holyrood term in 2031. In a statement, Scottish Labour leader Anas
Sarwar vowed to end what he called the SNP’s “ideological and
anti-science” prohibition on new nuclear power.

Opposition to nuclear
energy has a long history in Scotland, beginning in the 1970s with the
construction of the Torness Point reactor in East Lothian. Sarwar said the
SNP stance against nuclear power is costing Scotland high-quality jobs,
investment, and energy security. Scottish Labour said it would immediately
end a ban on new nuclear in office, and begin the process of securing sites
for next-generation technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs).
Sarwar said the SNP’s nuclear policy leaves Scots “vulnerable to
tyrants abroad”. The SNP have chosen misinformation and scaremongering on
nuclear power — leaving Scotland with less energy security, higher bills
and fewer jobs,” he said.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have also backed
new nuclear in Scotland ahead of the May elections, with the party open to
supporting projects at Hunterston and Torness.

SNP warns of high costs from
nuclear In response, the SNP said Scottish Labour’s nuclear plans would
“hammer Scottish bill payers”. The party pointed to North Sea neighbour
Norway, where a government-appointed commission this week recommended
against investing in nuclear power at present. SNP depute leader Keith
Brown said Scottish families “already pay a ‘nuclear tax’ to fund the
two most expensive nuclear plants in the world”, referring to Hinkley
Point C and Sizewell C. “Why on earth does Anas Sarwar want to inflict
more of this on Scotland?” Brown questioned.

 Energy Voice 9th April 2026,
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/nuclear/595535/labour-and-snp-clash-over-nuclear-power-for-scotland-amid-holyrood-campaign/

April 11, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Arrests at Lakenheath nuclear base blockade

News, Apr 6th, https://freedomnews.org.uk/2026/04/06/arrests-at-lakenheath-nuclear-base-blockade/

International Peace Camp protests British complicity in Iran and Gaza

Several protesters were arrested at RAF Lakenheath over the weekend, during the International Peace Camp held at the US-occupied nuclear base. The actions included a successful blockade of the main gates of the base, with protestors focusing on the ongoing Iran war, the Gaza genocide, and the presence of nuclear weapons at the site.

The camp, taking place from 1-6 April, built to a crescendo over the Easter weekend with the main gates successfully blockaded for three hours on Saturday. Two protestors were arrested for refusing to move, with one of them citing attacks on over 600 schools and 300 medical facilities in Iran as her motivation for direct action.

Easter Sunday saw a further seven arrests when a number of protestors focusing on the genocide in Gaza wore tabards offering support for Palestine Action. The camp has also featured dramatic interventions from the Red Rebel Brigade.

Lakenheath, located in Suffolk, has for decades been a home of the US Air Force in Europe, and last year once again became home to US nuclear weapons on UK soil, with B61 gravity bombs delivered last summer after a long period of preparation. The base has been actively involved in the Iran war, used by a wide range of US aircraft to transit to stations in the Middle East. An F-15E Strike Eagle shot down over Iran is believed to have been a Lakenheath aircraft.

The camp, organised by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace, has featured addresses from CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt, and former British Army Colonel Chris Romberg, who was arrested last year in Parliament Square for carrying a sign in support of Palestine Action.

The camp is scheduled to conclude with a ‘grand finale’ today, Easter Monday (6th April) .

April 9, 2026 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear fusion – triumph of hope over expectation.

 Letter Andrew Warren: The subhead for your editorial (The FT View, March
20) enthusing about the UK government’s latest £2.5bn commitment to
nuclear fusion research acknowledges it to be an “elusive power
source”. That is a decided understatement.

Back in 1967, the second
Wilson government produced an energy white paper. In it, regret was
expressed that, despite 20 years of government funding, nuclear fusion
research had yet to begin any moves towards producing any hard results.
Nonetheless confidence was expressed that a breakthrough, with important
commercial and policy implications, could be confidently anticipated by
1990.

Strangely enough, the next energy white paper (not published until
2003, by the Blair government) expressed very similar sentiments — but
with the “fulfilment date” for nuclear fusion brought forward by a
further 20-plus years. Here we are 23 years later. And now we have the
latest Labour government, announcing further billions in research funds
dished out towards delivering nuclear fusion, with results due perhaps some
time after 2040. Truly, a triumph of hope over expectation.

 FT 25th March 2026 https://www.ft.com/content/232c1ef5-9689-4911-8936-72af18e88165

April 9, 2026 Posted by | technology, UK | Leave a comment

Did Trump bomb Iranian schoolgirls with UK-made weaponry?

Exclusive: Scottish factory helps make US Tomahawk missiles reportedly used in attack on the Minab compound in Iran, where over 100 children were killed.

JOHN McEVOY, 9 March 2026

On 28 February, a girls’ primary school in southern Iran was hit by a missile, killing 168 people, mostly children.

The UN education agency, UNESCO, said the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab was a “grave violation of humanitarian law”.

Videos analysed by Bellingcat revealed yesterday that a US Tomahawk missile was used to hit another building inside the same compound, adding to evidence indicating the US was responsible for the school strike minutes earlier. 

Neither Israel nor Iran is known to possess Tomahawk missiles. 

The revelation raises serious questions about whether UK-made components were used in the attack.

This is because a factory owned by US arms firm Raytheon in Glenrothes, Scotland, has won several contracts to produce components for Tomahawk missile systems over recent years.

In 2017, Raytheon won a $260 million contract to make 196 Tomahawks, with 4.4 percent of the goods being supplied from its factory in Glenrothes.

A similar US navy contract published in May 2022 shows that around 3 percent of the Tomahawk supply chain was awarded to Raytheon’s site in Scotland.

Most recently, in December 2025, the Pentagon announced Glenrothes would have a 2.9 percent stake in making another 350 Tomahawks.

A defence industry website said this arrangement reflected the missiles’ “longstanding transatlantic supply chain”.

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) spokesperson Sam Perlo-Freeman told Declassified: “The UK arms industry is deeply entwined with the US. This is true of the F-35 aircraft that has played such a devastating role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and is now playing a crucial role in the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. 

“And it is true of the Tomahawk missiles, which appear to have been used to commit this horrific massacre of schoolgirls in Iran. 

“Far from being a guarantee of international peace and security as the government claims, this arms producing partnership is a principal source of war, death and destruction across the world. It is time for the UK to stop fuelling this US-led war machine, and disentangle itself from it”.

Asked whether it will review and potentially suspend export of the components, a UK government spokesperson said: “We operate one of the most robust export control regimes in the world and keep export licences under continual and careful review”.

Raytheon was asked to comment.

‘Play a key part’

A parliamentary report published in 2012-13 noted that Raytheon’s site in Glenrothes “design and manufacture components, predominantly exported to the US, for guidance systems used in weapons like the Tomahawk missile”.

A Glenrothes manager said in 2020 the factory “designed and manufactured three power supplies” for the Tomahawk, adding: “This work enabled us to be involved in one of the US Navy’s flagship programmes and to play a key part in the manufacture of the electronics used in the system”.

Raytheon UK’s own website notes that its “advanced manufacturing business supports… Tomahawk long-range land attack cruise missile[s]”.

A CAAT report from 2021 found that “Glenrothes was the only Raytheon facility outside North America to play a part in the US-sold Tomahawk Missile production and is the sixth most involved of the 25-plus factories contributing to the weapon system”.

‘It was done by Iran’

The new evidence contradicts statements made by US president Donald Trump, who said on Sunday that the attack was launched “by Iran”.

He said: “They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran”

NR Jenzen-Jones, the director of Armament Research Services, an intelligence consultancy that provides munitions analysis to governments and NGOs, told the Guardian: “The video shows a Tomahawk missile striking a target. Given the belligerents, that indicates it is a US strike, as Israel is not known to possess Tomahawk missiles”.

He added: “Despite various claims circulating online, the munition in question is clearly not an Iranian Soumar missile [as] the Soumar has a distinctive external engine located towards the rear, on the underside of the munition”.

Reuters reported on 5 March that US military investigators “believe it is likely that US forces were responsible” for the “strike on an Iranian girls’ school”.

Raytheon’s site in Glenrothes has previously been linked to war crimes in Yemen by Saudi Arabia, a key customer.

When Declassified visited the town in 2022, local primary school teacher Sharon Rickard said she was “horrified” to hear weapons made in her town might be used on civilians. 

“I have a friend who works there as an engineer and she’s never really said too much about her job”, she said, “but maybe that’s why”.

April 8, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UK Government reviewing fallout report after nuclear test concerns

By Craig Langford, UK Defence Journal 5th April 2026,
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/government-reviewing-fallout-report-after-nuclear-test-concerns/

The government has said it will examine the implications of a previously restricted report into nuclear fallout contamination, following renewed scrutiny over its handling and potential impact on past legal cases involving veterans.

Responding to two written questions from Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, Defence Minister Lord Coaker did not directly address whether the report calls into question evidence presented in earlier litigation, but confirmed that further work is underway.

“We remain committed to listening to their concerns and working collaboratively to address them,” he said, referring to nuclear test veterans.

The questions relate to a 2014 report, disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, which has prompted claims about the suppression of evidence and its possible relevance to historic court proceedings, including the Supreme Court case Ministry of Defence v AB and others.

Coaker pointed instead to a recent Commons statement, noting that ministers have committed to reviewing both the contents of the report and how it was handled.

“The Minister for Veterans and People reiterated the government’s commitment to maximum transparency and made a commitment to undertake work to fully understand the implications of the 2014 report and its handling, and to take action if necessary,” he said.

April 8, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK submarine captain steps down after link to Chinese spy case

 Navy previously conducted investigation into senior officer to examine potential
blackmail risk. The captain of one of Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines
has stepped back from his role this week after being investigated over his
relationship with Joani Reid, the Labour MP whose husband has been arrested
on suspicion of spying for China.

 FT 31st March 2026,
https://www.ft.com/content/93beaf9c-e1c8-4875-b446-2cd148529f6a

April 5, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Massacre of UK aid workers: two years of obfuscation from Britain

Hamza Yusuf, Declassified UK, Apr 3, 2026


April 1st marked the two year anniversary of Israel’s massacre of World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in Gaza.

Seven members of the organisation were killed by Israeli drones while travelling in a convoy in Deir el-Balah in Central Gaza, after unloading 100 tonnes of food aid at its Gaza warehouse.

The group was travelling in a “deconflicted zone” in two armoured vehicles that were clearly branded with the WCK logo and had coordinated their movements with the Israeli military. 
 The attack was not an anomaly, but a feature of Israel’s systematic targeting of aid workers in Gaza. The United Nations said that 383 aid workers were killed in 2025, with nearly half of them in Gaza.
As Declassified previously revealed, Britain’s Ministry of Defence holds video footage of Gaza from the day of the attack but is refusing to publish it – footage taken by a Royal Air Force surveillance plane which spent approximately five hours above Gaza that day.

n December 2025, the family of James Henderson renewed their demand for the MoD to release the recording. “The reason for not supplying that footage from the Ministry of Defence is a bit of an insult,” his father told Declassified. 

The cousin of another of the victims, James Kirby, said in a statement released on the anniversary of his killing: “It is especially difficult to see that men who were so loyal and committed to their country have not yet received the justice they deserve.


The cousin of another of the victims, James Kirby, said in a statement released on the anniversary of his killing: “It is especially difficult to see that men who were so loyal and committed to their country have not yet received the justice they deserve.”Two years on, communication from the government has been limited, and the family remains unsure whether a full and formal investigation is underway.”

 A tepid statement from the UK’s Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer published on the two-year anniversary saidthe UK “will continue to push for justice”. 

But Falconer is only calling on Israel to investigate itself. “I urge Israel to swiftly conclude and publish their findings into this attack. The families of those killed must know why this happened. Lessons must be learnt”, Falconer said. 

But the accountability the British government is demanding would be much clearer if it released its own spy flight footage. 

True to form, however, where Israel is involved, Britain prefers at best silence in the face of crimes and at worst smokescreens and deceit.

April 5, 2026 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Legal challenge against nuclear site plan rejected

 BBC 2nd April 2026,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy01wkgw2z8o

A judge has thrown out a legal challenge against a plan to extract water at the UK’s largest nuclear site.

Sellafield, in Cumbria, was given permission last May by the Environment Agency (EA) to extract water from its site, as part of the process to build a new radioactive waste storage facility.

Campaigners for Lakes Against Nuclear Dump (LAND) submitted a legal challenge against this, amid fears for the impact on nearby rivers. A high court judge said there was “no credible evidence” to allow the challenge to go ahead.

A Sellafield spokesman said the outcome would allow it to focus on its “mission to deal with the hazards on our site safely and sustainably”.

The licence granted to Sellafield would allow the company to extract up to 77,077,224 gallons (350,400 cubic metres) of water a year until 2031.

The EA previously said it had considered all the potential impacts on the environment before giving permission.

Marianne Birkby, who submitted the challenge for LAND, said the group disagreed with the decision and would be looking to lodge an appeal.

It argued the environmental impacts of the licence had not been properly assessed and feared contaminated water would end up in the rivers Calder and Ehen.

“We feel we must challenge the Environment Agency’s continual rubberstamping of Sellafield’s wish lists,” Birkby said.

Sellafield said removing water from a construction site was standard practice when preparing land for a building project.

A spokesman said: “This water will not be discharged to the rivers Calder or Ehen. It is pumped to on-site storage tanks for testing prior to being discharged direct to sea.”

April 4, 2026 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Manchester Professor appointed expert reviewer for Government nuclear decommissioning review

 A University of Manchester Professor has been appointed by Lord Vallance,
Minister of State for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, as an
Expert Reviewer for an independent assessment of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA); an executive non-departmental public body
that is charged with, on behalf of government, the mission to clean-up the
UK’s earliest nuclear sites safely, securely and cost effectively.


Professor Zara Hodgson FREng is an internationally recognised expert in
nuclear energy policy and research, and Director of the University’s
Dalton Nuclear Institute. She has been appointed to support the NDA 2026
Review, which has been commissioned by the Government to provide assurance
on the NDA’s performance and governance, and to make recommendations on
improvements.

The Review is led by Dr Tim Stone CBE, a senior expert
adviser to five previous Secretaries of State in two successive UK
governments and the Chair of Nuclear Risk Insurers. Professor Hodgson will
join a team of three other independent experts to support Dr Stone. The
review will focus on the NDA’s strategic planning and management, project
and programme delivery, and financial management. It will assess how
effectively the NDA delivers value for money for the taxpayer while
maintaining the highest standards of safety, transparency and governance
across the UK’s civil nuclear legacy. Reviewers will challenge current
practices, propose bold value-for-money recommendations, and highlight good
practice while identifying areas for improvement.

 Manchester University 1st April 2026, https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/manchester-professor-appointed-expert-reviewer-for-government-nuclear-decommissioning-review/

April 4, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

No Three Mile Island in Suffolk!

  by beyondnuclearinternational

A new nuclear review will ignore the obvious perils of new reactors on a UK beach, warns Together Against Sizewell C

The following is a statement from Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) in response to the “Fingleton Nuclear Review” adopted by the UK government, entirely influenced by the nuclear power industry and its lobbyists in a frantic effort to copycat the US model of accelerating approval of dangerous, expensive and entirely unnecessary nuclear power projects.

Together Against Sizewell C (TASC) is appalled that the UK government plans to adopt all 47 recommendations of the ‘Fingleton Nuclear Review’.  This review is based on a false premise that nuclear is ‘clean energy’ [see Note 1] and ‘needed to power Britain’s future’[see Note 2]. Neither of these assertions stand up to public scrutiny, the review being driven by the nuclear industry, big business and lobbyists for commercial and ideological reasons. Claims that nuclear is ‘homegrown power’ conveniently overlook the fact that the UK do not have any indigenous supplies of uranium needed to fuel the reactors, that market currently being dominated by Russia.

Those trying to convey a false impression of nuclear as clean are merely gaslighting the British public. While nuclear may be able to claim relatively low carbon production during the operational period, the long deployment times for new gigawatt nuclear reactors such as Hinkley and Sizewell C means a lot of additional carbon is produced from burning more fossil fuels while we must wait for new nuclear to become operational when compared with far cheaper, quicker to deploy renewables and energy storage.

The review makes unsubstantiated claims that nature will benefit from adopting these recommendations but in TASC’s view this is an irresponsible assumption for this government to accept, especially as environmental experts were excluded from the review team. The UK is already one of the most nature depleted nations on the planet – we cannot afford to degrade our environmental protections any further.  

In TASC’s opinion, Sizewell C demonstrates that regulations need to be strengthened, not weakened – Sizewell C is sited in a National Landscape, surrounded by designated wildlife sites, in the UK’s most drought-prone region and on one of Europe’s fastest eroding coastlines. Despite this, it received DCO approval from the Secretary of State against the recommendation of the 5 independent planning experts. 

£40 billion Sizewell C is proceeding at pace, even though the project has still not secured a guaranteed sustainable supply of potable water essential for its 60 years of operation. Nor has it demonstrated that the site can be kept safe for its full lifetime in a credible maximum sea level rise scenario – after DCO approval TASC discovered that Sizewell C have committed to install two huge additional sea defences in an extreme climate change scenario, the need for which EDF knew about since 2015 yet chose not to include them in their DCO application, meaning the additional sea defences have had no public scrutiny or impact assessment on the receiving environment.

TASC fear for the safety of our descendants and the precious, rapidly eroding Suffolk coastline because future generations have been left to rely on the developer’s unassessed sea defences to protect Sizewell C and its 3,900 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel from flooding in an extreme sea level rise scenario over the next 150 years or longer if a geological disposal facility is not available [see Note 3]. Hardly responsible ancestry from this government.

Notes:- 

    1. The myth that nuclear is ‘clean energy’ In TASC’s view, the reasons why nuclear power can’t be legitimately labelled as ‘clean’ include:- 


a)  The pollution generated from the mining, milling, fabrication and enrichment to produce the nuclear fuel which mainly affects indigenous peoples in producer countries, 

b)  The pollutants discharged to air and water from an operational nuclear power station, including the thousands of tonnes of dead fish, heavy metals, chlorine and the cocktail of other pollutants that will be discharged to the sea annually from the plant’s cooling water system, and

c)  The legacy of highly radioactive spent fuel and other radioactive waste from nuclear power plants currently has no universally agreed management programme, nor any waste repository and which will be an environmental, as well as financial, burden for future generations for thousands of years – see N Scarr Report, ‘Plutonium—the complex and ‘forever’ radiotoxic element of nuclear waste. How exactly should we manage its containment?’

2. Various reports have demonstrated that the UK can fulfil its low carbon energy requirements without new nuclear, and at lower cost than new nuclear e.g. the January 2023 report by LUT University, Finland, ‘100% Renewable Energy for the United Kingdom’ and the 2022 UCL report ‘The role of new nuclear power in the UK’s net-zero emissions energy system’. Regarding national security, events in Ukraine have demonstrated that nuclear plants and their associated infrastructure are both a target and a weapon (see iNews article, ‘Attacks on nuclear plants are being normalised – and the consequences could be disastrous’ and the recent direct drone attacks on Zaporizhzhya NPP which have led to fires at the plant) so are a threat to national scrutiny. Scattering SMRs throughout the country will only increase the risk of a malicious attack (or accident).

3. TASC press release 12.01.26, ‘Escalating Erosion on East Suffolk Coast should be a huge worry for Sizewell C’

April 2, 2026 Posted by | UK | Leave a comment

Scotland won’t pursue ‘unproven’ SMRs and ‘experimental’ fusion as focus remains renewables

30 Mar, 2026 By Thomas Johnson, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/scotland-wont-pursue-unproven-smrs-and-experimental-fusion-as-focus-remains-renewables-30-03-2026/

Scotland plans to focus on investing in renewables as nuclear fusion and small modular reactors (SMRs) remain “unproven technology”, a Scottish Minister has said.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), the ruling party in Scotland, has banned the development of any new nuclear in the country – and seems set to maintain this even as promising new technologies emerge.

Speaking in Scottish Parliament last week, MSP for Aberdeenshire East and cabinet secretary for climate action and energy Gillian Martin outlined how even with the buzz around fusion at the moment, the Scottish government will not be pursuing new opportunities within the nuclear sector.


“The Scottish Government recognises the increasing interest in fusion energy. However, fusion remains experimental, with no commercial deployment and uncertainties around cost, safety and timescales,” she said.

“The UK Government’s prototype fusion plant is not expected to be operational until 2040, but the climate emergency demands proven, deployable solutions now.”

Martin explained how this policy extends to the deployment of SMRs.

“We do not plan to build small nuclear reactors, which are unproven technology that has not been deployed,” she said.

“The Scottish Government has a policy against new nuclear fission.”

The topic arose in Scottish Parliament after MSP for South Scotland Martin Whitfield quizzed Martin regarding any impact on Scottish energy policy could expect in light of plans Torness nuclear power station will close by 2030.

Torness, the East Lothian‑based nuclear power plant operated by EDF, is one of the UK’s four remaining advanced gas‑cooled reactor (AGR) stations. It was due to close in 2028 but EDF announced in 2024 it would be extending its life for a further two years.

April 2, 2026 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

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