Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint
– When the nuclear Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the US and Russia expired last week, it ended a historic era— but triggered widespread speculation about the future.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “February 5 was a grave moment for international peace and security”.
For the first time in more than half a century, he pointed out, “we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America – the two States that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons.”
US President Donald Trump dismissed the termination of the treaty rather sarcastically when he told the New York Times last month: “if it expires, it expires”—and denounced the expiring treaty as “a badly negotiated deal”.
“We will do a better agreement”, he promised, adding that China, which has one of the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenals, “and other parties” should be part of any future treaty.
The Chinese, according to the Times, “have made clear they are not interested”.
Currently, the world’s nine nuclear powers are the US, UK, Russia, France and China—all permanent members of the Security Council—plus India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
Collectively, they possess an estimated 12,100 to 12,500 nuclear warheads, with Russia and the US owning nearly 90% of the total eve while all nine are actively modernizing their arsenals.
Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute told IPS the START Treaty should be extended at least a year by formal or informal means. Is that as good as obtaining a new treaty that would include China as the US administration wants? No.
“Is it as good as fulfilling legally required steps such as adherence to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) unanimous ruling to negotiate the universal elimination of nuclear weapons or the fulfillment of the promise of nuclear disarmament embodied in Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)? No”.
However, argued Granoff, doing nothing is asserting that a modest threat reducing easily obtained step now should not be taken because there are better ways forward. A modest positive step is no impediment to moving in other desired manners.
Fully terminating START communicates to the entire world that the US and Russia are so diplomatically inept that they cannot be trusted to continue to hold the entire world hostage to annihilation by holding thousands of first-use-ready nuclear weapons over everyone’s heads without adequate reasonable restraint, said Granoff.
The arguments being put forth as to why nothing can be done are inadequate.
First, the US argues that a new arrangement, a new treaty, is needed to bring China into the fold of restraint, he said.
“A modest step of extending START for a year by mutual presidential decrees while new negotiations take place does not negate creating a new treaty that would include China.”
Second, the arguments used to rationalize the new arms race fail to consider the folly of producing more accurate, usable, and powerful nuclear weapons”, declared Granoff.
Guterres pointed out the dissolution of decades of achievement could not come at a worse time – the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is the highest in decades.
“Yet even in this moment of uncertainty, we must search for hope. This is an opportunity to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context.”
“I welcome that the Presidents of both States have made clear that they appreciate the destabilizing impact of a nuclear arms race and the need to prevent the return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation.
“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action. I urge both States to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security’, said Guterres.
In a statement released last week, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), a global network of legislators working to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world, said the importance of the New START treaty is hard to overstate.
“As other nuclear treaties have been abrogated in recent years, this was the only deal left with notification, inspection, verification and treaty compliance mechanisms between Russia and the US. Between them, they possess 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons.”
The demise of the treaty will bring a definitive and alarming end to nuclear restraint between the two powers. It may very well accelerate the global nuclear arms race, PNND warned.
This was one of the key reasons that on January 27, 2026, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 85 Seconds to Midnight.
Last year, PNND Co-President Senator Markey introduced draft legislation into the US Senate urging the government to negotiate new post-START agreements with Russia and China. The legislation is supported by a number of other Senators and by a companion bill in the House of Representatives. But this seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the Trump Administration.
Granoff, providing a deeper analysis, told IPS the scientific data makes clear that a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would annihilate humanity and that a limited nuclear exchange of less than 2% of the world’s arsenals would put around 5 million tons of soot into the stratosphere leading billions of deaths and the devastation of modern civilization everywhere.
“Realism reveals that the alleged need to duplicate the arsenals of adversary nations is not needed for deterrence. Realism also reveals that there is actually little to no meaningful difference between a nation having 600 (as China does now) or over 1400 deployed nuclear weapons, mirroring the US and Russia, or 30,000 nuclear weapons as Russia and the US each had at the height of the last arms race”.
“The reality is that devastation globally of a small portion of the world’s nuclear arsenals would be unambiguously unacceptable to any sane person. We could say that realism informs us that we have moved from Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to Self-Assured Destruction (SAD). The fact is that if any of the 9 states with the weapons were to use several hundred nuclear weapons that nation itself would also be devastated. MAD today reveals a new acronym, SAD.”
Meanwhile, a posting in the US State Department website reads
Treaty Structure: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, enhances U.S. national security by placing verifiable limits on all Russian deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons. The United States and the Russian Federation had agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.
Strategic Offensive Limits: The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011. Under the treaty, the United States and the Russian Federation had seven years to meet the treaty’s central limits on strategic offensive arms (by February 5, 2018) and are then obligated to maintain those limits for as long as the treaty remains in force.
Aggregate Limits
Both the United States and the Russian Federation met the central limits of the New START Treaty by February 5, 2018, and have stayed at or below them ever since. Those limits are:
• 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; • 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit); • 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
While the new multi-year energy program favors nuclear power, our investigation reveals that the final bill for the EPR2 reactor program could reach nearly 250 billion euros.
“EDF presents its provisional estimate for the EPR2 program at 72.8 billion euros,” read a press release from the group on December 18 .
The final cost estimate for the construction of the first series of six French -made nuclear reactors at the Penly (Seine-Maritime), Gravelines (Nord), and Bugey (Ain) sites, of the EPR2 type (approximately 1,650 megawatts of power), is expected this spring. EDF and its shareholder, the French State, hope for a final investment decision by the end of the year.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has initiated talks with France on strengthening Europe’s nuclear deterrent as he urged the continent to bolster its defences and “repair” strained relations with the US. The discussions, centred on the possibility of Germany joining France’s nuclear umbrella, underline mounting anxiety in Europe over an expected reduction in the US military presence on the continent, as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine enters its fifth year.
The most sinister revelation from the article is that NATO’s Secretary-General maintains a “highly classified” contingency plan which allows giving the NATO Supreme Allied Commander broad emergency authority to unilaterally move forces around without a vote of the members:
The Munich Security Conference has kicked off, and not surprisingly the Brussels nomenklatura and its attendant apparatchiks and media flacks are pushing war hysteria. The purpose of this is to make the Ukrainian conflict feel existential to Europeans to jawbone them into parting with their dwindling eurobucks for the sake of bleeding Russia as much as possible.
BRUSSELS — Western countries increasingly believe the world is heading toward a global war, according to results from The POLITICO Poll that detail mounting public alarm about the risk and cost of a new era of conflict.
But while Politico smugly celebrates the convection toward war, the rag laments the unwillingness of the drowning masses to destroy what remains of their serfhood for the sake of funding these cabal-provoked wars:
But The POLITICO Poll also revealed limited willingness among the Western public to make sacrifices to pay for more military spending. While there is widespread support for increasing defense budgets in principle across the U.K., France, Germany and Canada, that support fell sharply when people learned it might mean taking on more government debt, cutting other services or raising taxes.
This leaves European leaders “in a bind”:
So European leaders are left in a bind — unable to rely on the U.S., unable to use that as a reason to invest domestically, and under higher pressure to urgently solve this for a world where conflict feels closer than before.”
Well, the conflict “feels” closer than before only because the European sock-puppet leaders are pushing it there themselves, every day, more and more aggressively.
Most concerning for the elites is that support for militarization is on a down-trend heading out of 2025:
The elites are in panic over how to convince their populaces to fan the flames of war ever higher. They are distraught that the peons are overly concerned with selfish pursuits like self-preservation, sustenance, taking care of their families, paying their mortgages, etc. Conclaves like the Munich Conference are meant to stoke debate over precisely how to more effectively connive the masses sell the necessity of war to the public; the going concensus seems to be to just pile on more hysteria, fake lies about the Russian threat, etc. It’s a reliable standby.
This was supported by fiery calls-to-arms from Ukrainian frontliners:
“You [Europe] need to prepare yourselves before war comes to you. And in this, we Ukrainians are your best partners, because we already live in the future of war” – Oleksandr Falshtynskyi, Chief of Medical Service of the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, during Ukraine House at the Munich Security Conference.
He warns Europe to be ready for the coming war—but is Europe ready? Two recent simulations have shown that to woefully not be the case.
In the first, WSJ reports a single Ukrainian team of 10 drone operators was able to eliminate “two NATO battalions” in a single day without any losses:
Overall, the results were “horrible” for NATO forces, says Mr. Hanniotti, who now works in the private sector as an unmanned systems expert. The adversary forces were “able to eliminate two battalions in a day,” so that “in an exercise sense, basically, they were not able to fight anymore after that.” The NATO side “didn’t even get our drone teams.”
Multiple concurrent Wall Street Journal articles push war hysteria—it must be good for stock prices!
In the article, Germany’s “top military officer” General Carsten Breuer states explicitly that Russia will be ready to wage war on Europe in three years:
Breuer is racing to prepare Germany’s armed forces for war. And for the 61-year-old veteran of conflicts from Kosovo to Afghanistan, the clock is ticking.
Germany’s military-intelligence agency estimates that within the next three years, Russia, whose armies poured into Ukraine in 2022, will have amassed enough weaponry and trained enough troops to be able to start a wider war across Europe. Breuer says a smaller attack could come at any time.
“We have to be ready,” he says.
Besides the obvious fear-mongering, this does appear to indirectly confirm our thesis that Russia is building a large rear reserve force if NATO ‘intelligence’ continues to surmise that Russia “will have amassed enough weaponry and trained […] troops” for WWIII in three years’ time. Clearly, there is a surplus of force regeneration, which flies in the face of the contradictory narrative we’re fed daily that Russia’s losses are now vastly outpacing its recruitment. If that was the case, how could Russia possibly be building a force capable of tackling Europe so soon?
This quote from the article is just rich:
To that end, Breuer has been waging a multi-front campaign to rally Germany’s politicians, business people, soldiers and the general public behind efforts to speed the nation’s rearmament and persuade them that they must be prepared to fight Russia to preserve their democratic freedoms.
So, stoking WWIII to destroy Russia now retreads the same old phony and fatuous “freedums and liburty” ignis fatuus used by neocons time and again since the Iraq war days. Funny, given that it’s Germany now suffering from totalitarian restrictions on their so-called freedoms.
But while the article boasts of Germany raising its commitment level to provoke WWIII by stationing troops in Lithuania, the reality seems to be a bit different. Spiegel reports that Germany is in fact struggling to even find enough recruits to fill the brigade meant for the task:
On 13 February 1960, France detonated a nuclear weapon over the deserts of Algeria. It was the first of what were eventually 17 nuclear detonations across two sites. Four of these took place while Algeria’s fight for independence was still raging. To this day, communities harmed by the development of France’s nuclear weapons arsenal are seeking recognition, compensation and redress.
ICAN joins other organisations in a joint statement on the anniversary of France’s first nuclear detonations in Algeria, “66 Years Since the First French Nuclear Explosion in Algeria … No Truth Without Transparency, No Justice Without Reparation”
The statement recognises efforts to address the legacy of harm from French nuclear testing through parliamentary debates in both Algeria and France. The explosions exposed nearby communities, soldiers and workers to dangerous levels of radiation and left a long-lasting toxic legacy in the environment.
In France, steps are being taken to revise the compensation framework in order to make it fairer for victims of the tests in Algeria and French Polynesia, alongside calls to strengthen transparency and accountability.
In Algeria, the People’s National Assembly addressed this issue for the first time in February 2025 through a parliamentary session that resulted in 13 recommendations calling for enhanced transparency, justice for nuclear victims, the transmission of memory, and the development of research on health and environmental impacts. ICAN France, the Observatoire des armaments and the Heinroch Böll stiftung published The Waste From French Nuclear Tests in Algeria: Radioactivity Under the Sand to provide more information on the environmental legacy of French testing in the region.
The statement further calls on the French government to provide sustained technical and financial support for health monitoring and environmental remediation programs. It calls on the Algerian government to protect public health in affected areas through a national program of monitoring, early screening, and medical care, and to ensure that populations receive accurate information in national and local languages, with particular attention to vulnerable groups. Today, people in Algeria are still living with cancers, contaminated lands, and intergenerational health problems linked to those tests.
France is urged to sign and both countries are encouraged to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
ICAN’s dedicated nuclear testing impacts website hosts stories of those who worked near the test sites in Algeria, as well as more detailed information on the tests carried out by France.
New START treaty expired, no binding constraints on arsenals
Russia commits to treaty limits as long as US does
Russia wary of costly arms race amid Ukraine conflict
MOSCOW, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Russia will keep observing the missile and warhead limits in the expired New START nuclear treaty with the United States as long as Washington continues to do the same, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
The 2010 treaty ran out on February 5, leaving the world’s two biggest nuclear-armed powers with no binding constraints on their strategic arsenals for the first time in more than half a century.
U.S. President Donald Trump rejected an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to voluntarily abide by the New START limits for another year, saying he wanted a “new, improved and modernized” treaty rather than an extension of the old one.
“Our position is that this moratorium on our side that was declared by the president is still in place, but only as long as the United States doesn’t exceed the said limits,” Lavrov told the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
“We have reason to believe that the United States is in no hurry to deviate from these indicators, and for the foreseeable future these indicators will be observed,” he said, without explaining the basis for that assumption
Lavrov reiterated that Russia wanted to start a “strategic dialogue” with the U.S., saying it was “long overdue”.
Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, has rejected Ukrainian accusations that it lacks the necessary equipment and components to safely operate the Soviet-built Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The claims were made by Pavlo Kovtoniuk, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear firm Energoatom, who told Reuters in Kyiv that Russia’s alleged deficiencies could lead to a nuclear accident if it attempted to restart the reactors.
Mr Kovtoniuk stated Russia lacked some equipment and spare parts to operate the plant, and risked a nuclear accident if it tried to restart the reactors.
Europe’s largest atomic power station, the facility was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2022.
All six of its Soviet-designed VVER-1000 pressurised water reactors are currently in a “cold shutdown” state.
The plant’s future remains a critical point of contention in ongoing peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, with both nations vying for control.
“Rosatom categorically rejects claims that Russia lacks the equipment and components required to ensure the safe operation of the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant,” Rosatom said in a statement to Reuters in English when asked about the remarks.
“Russia operates one of the world’s largest nuclear fleets, including VVER-1000 units identical to those installed at Zaporozhskaya NPP, and has full capacity to produce equipment, components and nuclear fuel.”
Rosatom, ranked as one of the world’s biggest nuclear corporations in terms of nuclear construction, enrichment services and mining, said that the key issue affecting nuclear safety at the plant was continued shelling in the area.
Ukraine’s Kovtoniuk argued that control equipment and monitoring systems at the plant were Ukrainian, that Russia would have to replace US fuel in the reactors, and that there was not enough water to cool the reactors if restarted.
“Insinuations implying that the plant’s systems are incompatible with Russian fuel are technically unfounded,” Rosatom said, adding that in late 2025, reactor No. 1 received a 10-year operating licence from Russia’s nuclear safety authority, Rostechnadzor.
Rosatom said the plant’s cooling system had never depended exclusively on the Kakhovka reservoir, adding that the cooling pond used a closed-loop system and had sufficient water.
In a political moment defined by secrecy, impunity, and the open decay of democratic institutions, few conversations cut as sharply as this one. Chris Hedges — Pulitzer Prize–winning former New York Times Middle East bureau chief — joins George Galloway to dissect the explosive Epstein files and the global elite they expose. What emerges is not a scandal at the margins, but a portrait of a ruling class so insulated, so depraved, and so unaccountable that its corruption has become a structural feature of Western power.
From the redactions shielding Trump and Netanyahu, to the British political meltdown engulfing Starmer’s inner circle, to the bipartisan rot in Washington, Hedges argues that the Epstein revelations are not an aberration but a window into a collapsing order. As he puts it, the files reveal “a depraved corrupt ruling global elite that has created a club that has locked the rest of us out,” one now reaching for authoritarian tools as its legitimacy crumbles.
This is a conversation about the Epstein affair — but also about the death spiral of American democracy, the rise of police‑state tactics, and the dangerous volatility of a declining empire whose leaders are losing their grip on reality. And with the Persian Gulf once again on the brink, Hedges warns that the same unaccountable forces exposed in the Epstein files are steering the world toward catastrophe.
If you want to understand the moment we’re living through — the corruption, the cover‑ups, the authoritarian drift, and the geopolitical brinkmanship — this exchange is essential.
Key Highlights
1. The Epstein Files as a Window Into Elite Rot
Hedges calls the documents “a depraved corrupt ruling global elite that has created a club that has locked the rest of us out.”
He argues the files expose not just individuals but the structure of unaccountable power across the US, UK, Israel, and Europe.
2. Trump’s Deep Exposure in the Files
Mentioned “38,000 times” in emails, according to Hedges.
Hedges says the redactions were designed “to protect Trump and Netanyahu.”
The Republican Party’s resistance to releasing the files “crumbled,” forcing Trump’s hand.
3. UK Political Meltdown
Galloway details cascading scandals around Starmer’s appointments — from Mandelson to a newly exposed associate tied to a convicted pedophile.
British media saturation contrasts sharply with US silence, which Hedges says reflects “the breakdown of democratic institutions.”
4. Bipartisan Complicity in the US
Hedges names Clinton, George Mitchell, and even Noam Chomsky as figures caught in the web.
He stresses that both parties are implicated, making accountability structurally impossible.
5. The Missing Videos & Intelligence Links
Epstein’s mansion contained a “closet‑sized safe” filled with recorded material.
Hedges: “It’s a question to what extent Epstein was working for the Mossad.”
Clear ties to Ehud Barak and Israeli intelligence raise the specter of kompromat.
6. Trump’s Cognitive Decline
Hedges cites Trump claiming he imposed tariffs on Switzerland because of its “prime minister” — a position that doesn’t exist.
He warns that a mentally deteriorating commander‑in‑chief is dangerous amid multiple potential war fronts.
7. The Rise of American Death‑Squad Policing
Hedges describes ICE and federal agents as “death squads… killing with impunity,” ignoring court orders.
He frames this as the defining feature of a police state.
8. Will Trump Attack Iran?
Pentagon opposition remains strong.
Netanyahu’s repeated visits suggest he’s not getting the commitment he wants.
Hedges: Trump is impulsive enough that “he could wake up tomorrow” and reverse course.
9. Epstein as a Global Operator, Not a Lone Predator
Epstein involved in Ukraine, Somaliland, even “a potential coup against Putin.”
Hedges emphasizes his inexplicable rise: “He can barely write English… that is the enigma.”
10. The Authoritarian Turn as Self‑Protection
As elites are exposed, Hedges argues they are “rapidly imposing authoritarian states” to maintain control.
He cites both US and UK crackdowns on dissent as evidence.
The developers of Hinkley C continue to misrepresent the impact that the nuclear plant will have on nature
Today EDF has published a press release which misrepresents the cost of its acoustic fish deterrent and the impact that the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant will have on wildlife.
It comes as England’s leading nature groups and over 60 MPs publish a letter calling on the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Milliband, to reject the three recommendations of the Nuclear Regulatory Review which threaten to undermine protections for nature.
Matt Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, says:
“The developers of Hinkley C continue to misrepresent the impact that the nuclear plant will have on nature. Today’s press release claims that a number of plant safety measures are fish protection measures. This is highly misleading and allows EDF to pretend that £700 million is being spent to protect nature, when the real figure is closer to £50m. It also misrepresents the number of fish affected by the proposed plant – they spotlight the suggestion that just two salmon will be killed per year when Environment Agency experts warn that 4.6 million fish will die every year – including critically endangered species such as European eel.
“It’s shocking that these claims were accepted without interrogation by the Nuclear Regulatory Review. On the basis of these false claims, the Government is now considering progressing recommendations which will lead to nature protections being severely compromised.
“The leaders of England’s largest nature groups and over 60 MPs have written to the Government today to express concerns about errors in the Review, and the damage its recommendations would cause to wildlife that is already on the brink.”
The review claimed that fish protection measures at Hinkley C nuclear power station will cost £700 million. The actual cost of the fish deterrent system is £50 million. This £50 million is in the context of an overall project cost of £46 billion, up from an original £18 billion due to ballooning costs that are nothing to do with the environment.
The review claimed that that fish protection measures at Hinkley C will protect just 0.08 salmon, 0.02 trout and 6 lamprey per year. The actual numbers from research carried out by Environment Agency suggest that 4.6 million adult fish per year could be killed per year without protection measures, a scale of wildlife destruction which would have significant consequences for ecosystems across the internationally important Severn Estuary. Many of these fish are already rare or endangered.
Natural England wrote yesterday: “The Severn Estuary has the highest recorded number of fish species in the UK and is the nursery ground for many of the young fish that our fishing industry depends on. The estuary also plays a crucial role in the lifecycle of a range of endangered migratory fish species including Atlantic Salmon. It is for these reasons that the estuary and some of its species are protected by law.”
About 30 workers at Dounreay are believed to have been offered early leaving terms in a scheme designed to trim the size of Nuclear Restoration Services’ UK-wide workforce.
The scheme, which has raised the hackles of unions, offers one month of salary per year of service, capped at 21 months of pay or £95,000.
No numbers for Dounreay have been made available but about 500 applied at NRS’s 14 sites throughout the country. Of those, about 200 have been made offers.
It is part of a wider Treasury drive to cut the public sector payroll following its growth during the pandemic.
About 1200 are employed by NRS at Dounreay though that will increase by more than 300 when plans to put NRS in charge of the neighbouring MoD plant at Vulcan come to pass.
Dounreay provide £128k over 3 years for STEM activities for Caithness and Sutherland primary pupils
Read More
The MAVE scheme is opposed by Prospect, which along with GMB and Unite, is running a What a Waste campaign, to highlight the loss of scarce, skilled specialists in the nuclear sector.
They claim the job cuts will cost the government more in the long term as it will put a spoke in the programme to decommission redundant nuclear sites and mean it has to fork out to rebuild the workforce in the future……………………..
The UK government has admitted that a study into the suitability of Scottish sites for new nuclear power projects could have been “a waste” of money. The government commissioned Great British Energy-Nuclear (GBE-N), a public body, to carry out the study.
The revelation came after Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) secretary of state Ed Miliband told Scottish journalists in October 2025 that:
given the growing interest in nuclear in Scotland, I’m asking GBE-N to assess Scotland’s capability for new nuclear power stations, including at Torness and Hunterston.
This is going to be a very, very big issue in the Scottish election campaign. We are saying yes to new nuclear in Scotland.
Labour hoping to end SNP ban on new nuclear in Scotland
Scotland is due to go to the polls to elect a new Scottish parliament and Scottish government in May 2026. Labour is hoping to wrest back control from the Scottish National Party (SNP).
In an article about the same interview published in October 2025, the Scotsman newspaper reported that a “senior UK government source” had said they were considering submitting planning applications for new nuclear developments at Torness and Hunterston because they expected a Scottish Labour victory at the Holyrood election.
The UK Labour Party and Scottish Labour support nuclear power and nuclear weapons. This position is coming under pressure as the Green Party of England and Wales, which vehemently opposes all nuclear, increasingly challenges Labour in public opinion polls.
Under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, the government released documents to the Canary about Miliband’s request to GBE-N. These included a Q&A document prepared by DESNZ officials. It revealed that officials knew there would be concerns about new nuclear proposals in Scotland.
No new nuclear can be built in Scotland because planning policy is a devolved matter, and the ruling SNP opposes nuclear power. The rebuttal in the DESNZ Q&A was that there is “cross-party interest in new nuclear” in Scotland.
Energy department officials contradict each other on responsibility for study
The documents released under FOI also revealed that a DESNZ official, whose name was redacted, had sought to reassure GBE-N colleagues that DESNZ was not “behind the briefing” in an email sent on 22 October 2025 at 4:02pm.
That position was contradicted by an email in a separate earlier conversation where, on 21 October 2025 at 6:46pm, John Staples, DESNZ director for new nuclear strategy and fusion energy, said:
our SpAds [special advisors] want SoS [secretary of state] to be able to say the below to Scottish journalists.
‘Below’ in the email were lines drafted for Miliband which included:
I will ask Great British Energy – Nuclear to begin assessing Scotland’s capability for new nuclear power stations.
The internally prepared Q&A included a question which asked:
Isn’t this study a waste of money?
The DESNZ answer said:
New nuclear projects can deliver millions of pounds of investment and thousands of high-quality jobs to a region – UK ministers want to understand the potential for new projects right across Great Britain.
The Canary approached the Labour Party for comment, which deferred to DESNZ. DESNZ did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Obvious’ that study would be ‘waste of money’ – Scottish CND
A Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) spokesperson told the Canary:
It is obvious that an assessment of the viability of new nuclear sites in Scotland would be a waste of money, since the foremost issue is not the viability of sites but Scottish government policy.
Energy policy is devolved to Holyrood and the Scottish government very sensibly opposes new nuclear plants in Scotland.
There are a whole host of reasons why new nuclear plants in Scotland would be a terrible idea, including the absolutely exorbitant cost of nuclear plant construction, the reliance on destructive and unjust international uranium supply chains, and the enormous and cross-generational burden of decommissioning nuclear plants, which in the case of Dounreay is expected to take hundreds of years.
In particular, the notion that Scotland, which is a net energy exporter and has the potential to become an international renewables powerhouse, should pivot to costly nuclear projects at this stage is somewhat absurd.
Investing the same sums invested in nuclear power plants – scores of billions and climbing for Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C – into the grid, home insulation and the renewables sector across Scotland would be an immeasurably better investment.
For Scottish CND, another concerning element of the renewed push for nuclear power is the deep imbrication [overlapping] of the ‘civil’ and military nuclear industries, as openly promoted in the 2025 Industrial Strategy.
From this perspective, investment in new nuclear power plants can be seen as defence spending by stealth and a means of shoring up the UK nuclear weapons industry – something which is of no benefit to Scotland and indeed causes major risks and harms in Scottish communities.
New nuclear would be incredibly expensive – Scottish government minister………………………………………………….
SNP criticises ‘Westminster obsession with nuclear’………………………………………………
As Scotland prepares for elections, pro‑nuclear lobbyists are urging the Scottish Government to lift its ban on new nuclear developments.Yet the evidence shows that building new nuclear power stations would be an expensive white elephant — too slow, too costly, and ultimately unnecessary for tackling climate change.
Investing in nuclear now risks diverting resources from cheaper, faster, and safer renewable alternatives that are ready to deploy and without the risk of hazardous waste.
Nuclear makes us more vulnerable
Recent events in Europe underline nuclear’s vulnerabilities in a warming world. In summer 2025, prolonged heatwaves forced several French nuclear plants to reduce output or shut down entirely because the rivers and coastal waters used for cooling became too warm to operate safely. At sites including Golfech and Blayais operators had to curtail production, while the Gravelines plant faced additional disruption when swarms of jellyfish clogged its cooling systems. These incidents show how our changing climate can turn nuclear plants into operational white elephants at precisely the time electricity demand is high as people try to cool homes and buildings.
All energy sources produce carbon emissions over their lifecycle, but nuclear power stations typically emit more CO₂ per kilowatt-hour than wind or solar when construction, uranium mining, and waste management are included. For example, Sizewell C, currently under construction in Suffolk, is not expected to offset the emissions generated during its build phase until the late 2030s — well after the UK should have largely eliminated fossil fuels from electricity generation. Renewables, by contrast, deliver low-carbon power from day one.
Nuclear increases risk
Nuclear also carries long-term environmental and security risks. Coastal and riverside sites face rising sea levels and heatwave-induced water shortages, creating further potential for nuclear plants to become white elephants. They produce long-lived radioactive waste with no permanent disposal solution, are vulnerable to terrorism or armed conflict, and uranium mining causes serious ecological damage.
Advocates argue nuclear is needed for “baseload” power because wind and solar are variable. But baseload is an outdated concept.
Modern grid operators emphasise flexibility — blending renewables, storage, and demand management — rather than relying on inflexible generators. Large nuclear plants cannot easily ramp output to match demand and risk creating the same mismatch that critics cite for renewable variability. Proposed small modular reactors (SMRs) are similarly problematic: only two operate commercially worldwide, they are unproven at scale, and early evidence suggests they may be even more expensive per unit of electricity while producing more toxic waste — another potential white elephant.
Voters need real solutions, not white elephants
Meeting Scotland’s energy needs with renewables is feasible and cost-effective. Analyses suggest a renewable-first strategy could save the UK hundreds of billions compared to nuclear-centric plans, making the most of Scotland’s wind, solar, and engineering expertise. In contrast, costly nuclear projects risk becoming long-term white elephants — expensive, slow, and unsafe — at a time when voters need solutions that work now, not in a far distant future.
This months Cumbria Life has a gushing “People and Places” article “A Day Out in Whitehaven” with the strap line “Cornwall and Cannes eat your heart out- Discover a popular seaside town on the Cumbrian Coast” Words and Photos by Geneve Bartholomew – Brand.
The article makes much of the Sellafield funded Beacon Museum and Edge water sports centre along with the also Sellafield funded new gaming centre called LEVELS “a new digital and gaming hub located at the Grade 11 listed former Whittles building in the heart of the town.” The gaming hub will no doubt be a recruitment source for the next generation of AI robotics operators at Sellafield.
The heart of the town is being bought up by Sellafield with a pithy letter in the 4th February Whitehaven News from former councillor Tim Knowles saying “I was recently concerned that Whitehaven had experienced some kind of emergency. The town seemed full of people wandering around in high visibility clothing but with no apparent purpose. I was later told that this is the latest in Sellafield outfitting…..is the Hi Vis -uniform becoming a rather “in your face” badge of relative wealth around town.” The letter goes on to remark about “the number of sheds and fences painted in the famous “BNFL blue” all around West Cumbria.” (takeaways still happen)
Many £Millions of pounds of taxpayers money are being poured into Whitehaven filtered through the big brother hands of Sellafield. That is not all that is being poured into Whitehaven.
What the “Riviera of the North” article in Cumbria Life fails to mention is the outrageous state of the harbour with water that can no longer be called water in the docks. The ongoing pollution event started in 2022 and has continued ever since with the acid mine pollution from historic mines which includes the sulphur producing Anhydrite Mine at the old Marchon site (now scandalously approved for housing) . The ‘water’ only ran clear for a short time last September when Silt Buster machines were in operation in the rail tunnel which drains to the culvert in Queen’s Dock.
We recently released FOI answers to the authorities and the press. BBC online did cover this albeit not telling the whole story but with much more openness that that previously aired and certainly without the rose tinted specs of the Cumbria Life article. If this ongoing pollution event was happening in Cornwall or Cannes there would be banner headlines worldwide. But here in Whitehaven there are vested interests in keeping schtum about the impacts of deep mining because guess who wants to mine out the biggest void ever on the Lake District coast – yep our generous benefactor Sellafield.
Putin was also of the opinion that “a complete renunciation of New START’s legacy would, from many points, be a grave and short-sighted mistake”, having “adverse implications for the objectives of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].
Future of How awful could it get? The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired on February 5, terminating an era of arms control and imposed limits on lunatically contrived nuclear weapons programs of the United States and Russia. The New START Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011 and initially imposed a timeline of seven years for the parties to meet the central limits on strategic offensive arms. Those limits would then be maintained for the duration of the Treaty.
Till its expiry, the countries maintained limits on the following nuclear arms and systems: 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers capable of using nuclear armaments; 1,550 nuclear warheads on all three deployed platforms; and 800 deployed and non-deployed nuclear capable systems (ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and nuclear capable heavy bombers).
Such limits were hardly laudatory, or even exceptional. The cap of 1,550 nuclear warheads is the sort of thing that would only impress the limited crazed circle that passes for arms negotiators in this field, and the various thanocrats who populate such institutes as RAND. Such a show is merely intended for both Moscow and Washington to tell other countries with, or without nuclear weapons, that they could impose restraints on their own gluttonous conduct. Even then, New START, as with all such instruments dealing with limiting nuclear weapons, came with the intended, gaping lacunae. It failed to cover, for instance, tactical nuclear weapons, nor limit the deployment of new strategic weapon systems.
The treaty also fell into neglect with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Suspended on-site inspections never resumed after 2022. As François Diaz-Maurin of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistspoints out, “Russia has not shared data on its deployed strategic nuclear forces since September 2022, it suspended its treaty participation altogether in February 2023, and the United States has not published any aggregate numbers since May 2023.” New START came to increasingly look like a gentleman’s agreement being sniffed at by truculent adolescents.
In September last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin dangled the prospect of extending the treaty’s core limits for a year. At a September 22, 2025 Russian Security Council Meeting, he promised that Moscow was “prepared to continue observing the … central quantitative restrictions” stipulated in New START for twelve months provided the US acted “in similar spirit.” Following the year’s extension, “a careful assessment of the situation [and] a definite decision on whether to uphold these voluntary self-limitations” would be made. Putin was also of the opinion that “a complete renunciation of New START’s legacy would, from many points, be a grave and short-sighted mistake”, having “adverse implications for the objectives of the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].
When word of this reached the White House, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed the view that the proposal sounded “pretty good.” Two weeks later, President Donald Trump responded to a question posed by a TASS reporter that Putin’s proposal sounded “pretty like a good idea to me.” Little, however, was subsequently done. Indeed, Trump has cut the number of diplomats tasked with nuclear matters in the State Department and made public statements last October that nuclear testing might be resumed. He has also complicated arms control matters by insisting that China be added to the limitation talks, something Beijing has shown little interest in doing. In January this year, the president seemed unfussed that the international document was about to pass into the archives of diplomatic oblivion. “If it expires, it expires. We’ll do a better agreement.”
The US political establishment had been struck by a distinct lack of interest, even lethargy, on the subject. New START seemed to be yet another irritating fetter on an administration more enthused by ignoring international obligations than following them. Only a clutch of Democrats seemed to show concern in reflecting about what would follow the treaty’s expiration in House speeches given on January 14. This month, Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey, co-chair of the Senate’s Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, held a press conference urging the Trump administration to renew the vows of fidelity to arms control agreements. “Let’s be honest. America needs another nuclear weapon about as much as Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.”………………………………………………………..
The two powers most responsible for keeping nuclear weapons unforgivably attractive to those who would acquire them show promise of blotting their copybook further. There is a serious sentiment in Washington that the nuclear stockpile will and should grow. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in a fit of gloominess, moved its metaphorical Doomsday Clock just that bit closer to “midnight,” the point where biblical calamity will be assured. It now stands at 85 seconds to midnight. Not long to go now. https://theaimn.net/bad-beginnings-the-end-of-new-start/
France’s nuclear power modulation – ramping reactors up and down to meet demand and optimise fuel usage – will likely increase by 11% to 35 TWh this year, up from 31.5 TWh in 2025, Kpler power analyst Alessandro Armenia said on Thursday.
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