Scottish NFLA Convenor seeks ‘respect’ for Scotland’s stance on nuclear power.

12th July 2024,  https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/scottish-nfla-convenor-seeks-respect-for-scotlands-stance-on-nuclear-power/

The Convenor of Scotland’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities has written to the new Secretary of State for Scotland seeking his ‘respect and understanding for devolution’, particularly for the Scottish Government’s ‘explicit policy’ of not supporting the construction of new nuclear power stations.

Councillor Paul Leinster was concerned that Scottish Secretary Ian Murray appeared not to exclude the possibility of imposing unwanted nuclear energy projects on Scotland when he was interviewed on Good Morning Scotland on 9 July. As Councillor Leinster makes plain in his letter to the minister this would be ‘against Scottish planning policy and against the will of the Scottish Government’.

The suspicion that Scotland might be under a nuclear threat has some foundations. The Labour Government is committed to establishing a new body Great British Energy with its headquarters in Scotland. Though this does have the commendable remit of generating clean, green, and cheaper energy, regrettably, in a contradictory move, the new government is committed to including nuclear in the energy mix. And following on from Andrew Bowie, it appears from a blog written by Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, that another Scottish MP, Michael Shanks, representing Rutherglen has been given the nuclear power portfolio within the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.[1]

Despite any divergence of opinion over nuclear power, the Convenor of the Scottish NFLAs would still welcome the opportunity to work with the new Scottish Secretary on projects to increase renewable energy generation in Scotland and boost jobs in the sector; for as Cllr Leinster says: ‘I share your ambition of a constructive relationship across these islands, working together for the good of the planet and for achieving our shared climate goals’.

The NFLA Secretary has received an acknowledgement that the letter has been received and we look forward to the Secretary of State’s full response.

July 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Starmer’s role in Assange’s persecution

As head of the UK Crown Prosecution Service, the newly elected British PM Keir Starmer played a key role in setting in motion the infernal legal machinery that crushed Assange for 14 years

THOMAS FAZI, JUL 05, 2024,  https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/starmers-role-in-assanges-persecution
Even though Julian Assange was finally freed last month, after a 14-year-long ordeal, many myths still endure about the whole affair. One of these is that the case concerning Assange’s alleged rape of two girls in Sweden, in 2010, never went to trial because Assange evaded justice. In reality, Assange, who was then in the UK, made himself available for questioning via several means, by telephone or video conference, or in person in the Australian embassy. But the Swedish authorities insisted on questioning him in Sweden. Assange’s legal team countered that extradition of a suspect simply to question him — not to send him to trial, as he had not been charged — was a disproportionate measure.

This was more than a technicality: Assange feared that if he were extradited to Sweden, the latter’s authorities would extradite him to the US, where he had good reason to believe that he wouldn’t be given a fair trial. Sweden, after all, always refused to provide Assange a guarantee of non-extradition to the US — the reason why, when in 2012 the British Supreme Court ruled that he should be extradited to Sweden, Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. From there, however, he continued to make known his availability to be interrogated by the Swedish authorities inside the embassy, but they never replied.

Thanks to a FOIA investigation by the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, it would later emerge that a crucial role in getting Sweden to pursue this highly unusual line of conduct was played by the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions, then led by one Keir Starmer. In early 2011, while Assange was still under house arrest, Paul Close, a British lawyer with the CPS, gave his Swedish counterparts his opinion on the case, apparently not for the first time. “My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK”, Close wrote. Why did the Crown Prosecution Service advise the Swedes against the only legal strategy that could have brought the case to a rapid resolution, namely questioning Julian Assange in London, rather than insisting on his extradition?

In hindsight, it seems clear that the CPS’s aim was precisely that of keeping the case in a legal limbo, and Assange trapped in Britain, for as long as possible, especially considering how shaky the case against Assange was in the first place. After all, what better outcome for Assange’s enemies than keeping him under investigation for years, suspected of being a rapist but never either charged or cleared once and for all, thus justifying his arbitrary detention? The CPS’s hostile treatment of Assange, the citizen of an allied country, continued even after he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, for example by insisting on denying him “safe passage” in UK territory in order to be treated in a hospital for a shoulder problem.

A year after Assange had taken refuge in the embassy, it appears that the Swedish prosecutor was considering dropping the extradition proceedings, but she was deterred from doing so by the CPS. The prosecutor was concerned, among other things, about the mounting costs of costs of the Scotland Yard agents guarding the embassy day and night. But for the British authorities this was not a problem; they replied that they “do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter”.

As a result of the Swedish authorities’ highly unusual behaviour, Assange had, by then, been arbitrarily and illegitimately forced into detention for seven years, as was concluded even by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

What role, if any, did Keir Starmer play in all this as head of the CPS? During the period when the body was overseeing Assange’s extradition to Sweden, Starmer made several trips to Washington. US records show Starmer met with Attorney General Eric Holder and a host of American and British national security officials. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the British media organisation Declassified UK requested the itinerary for each of Starmer’s four trips to Washington with details of his official meetings, including any briefing notes. CPS replied that all the documents relative to Starmer’s trips to Washington had been destroyed. Asked for clarification — and whether the destruction of documents was routine — the CPS did not respond. 

Similarly, when Maurizi submitted a FOIA request to the CPS to shed light on the correspondence between Paul Close and the Swedish authorities, she was also told that all the data associated with Paul Close’s account had been deleted when he retired and could not be recovered. This only beckoned more questions: why did the CPS destroy key documents on a high-profile, ongoing case? And what did the CPS destroy exactly, and on whose instructions? The CPS added that Close’s email account had been deleted “in accordance with standard procedure”. However, Maurizi would later discover that this procedure was by no means standard. The destruction of key emails was distinctly suspicious.

Since then, Maurizi has been waging a years-long legal fight to access documents related to the CPS and Assange case, but she has been systematically stonewalled by CPS — even despite a judge order ordering the CPS to come clean about the destruction of key documents on Assange. One cannot help but wonder: what are they trying to hide? It’s hard to shake the conclusion that the real purpose of the Swedish investigation, and of CPS’s unusual behaviour, was simply to keep Assange detained for as long as necessary to get him extradited to the US.

Now that one of the key people behind all this has just been elected prime minister, it’s even less likely that we’ll ever learn the truth. Indeed, one cannot help but wonder if releasing Assange just before the election wasn’t a way — for Starmer and everyone else involved — to make this story go away once and for all.

July 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

‘Letters of last resort’: deciding response to a nuclear attack among first of Starmer’s tasks

The handwritten instructions new PMs write for Trident submarine commanders contain instructions for what to do if Britain’s leaders are killed

Guardian Dan Sabbagh 5 July 24

ometime soon after entering Downing Street as prime minister, Keir Starmer will be briefed on the deadly capability of Britain’s nuclear deterrent – and asked to consider what instructions to give Trident submarine commanders in the unlikely event the UK is destroyed in an all-out attack and he is among the millions killed.

In the aftermath of an election victory, it is a sobering moment. Tony Blair is described as having gone “quite quiet” just over a quarter of a century ago when asked to handwrite four identical “letters of last resort” to the commanders in the event that the UK no longer in effect exists.

James Strong, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, said the exercise acted as a counterweight to the drama of staying up all night, winning an election and visiting the monarch. “This is the moment where prime ministers say the reality of the job dawns on them, and that may be a reason why it keeps being done in this way”……………

While the previous Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was personally opposed to Trident, Starmer has already signalled he supports it – and would if necessary fire nuclear missiles. “We have to be prepared” to unleash the deterrent’s destructive power, the new prime minister said last month, describing it as “a vital part of our defence.”

The briefing is led by Adm Tony Radakin, the head of the armed forces, accompanied by what one former Downing Street official described as “stern-faced admirals in improbably grey suits”

There are about 40 warheads on every Vanguard submarine that carries the Trident missiles, though the exact number is a secret and may be slightly higher. Each is estimated to have an explosive power of 100 kilotons, according to David Cullen of the Nuclear Information Service – theoretically powerful enough to cause serious blast damage in a 3km radius.

In a time of war, it would fall to the prime minister (or if he or she were unavailable or dead, a nominated alternative whose identity is not disclosed) to authorise a nuclear attack.

The letters to the four commanders are handwritten, not necessarily immediately but relatively promptly. There are considered to be four basic options: retaliate; do nothing; join forces with an allied nation, probably the US; and even leave the matter to the commander’s discretion. “Taking the last option really would be passing the buck,” Strong said.

Once written, the letters are sealed in an envelope, and can only be delivered physically. Soon after, they are deposited in what one former Trident commander described as a “safe within a safe” in each of the submarines. There has been a British nuclear-armed submarine at sea on patrol at all times since 1969.

Meanwhile, Sunak’s instructions to the submarine on patrol remain in force, until a new boat has gone out with one of Starmer’s letters. Once no longer needed, the old prime minister’s instructions are destroyed, and what they have said has never been publicly disclosed, to maintain an aura of uncertainty.

Navy insiders say a complex verification process exists before a letter can be opened, which requires determining whether the UK has been subject to an all-out nuclear attack. That involves listening for signals from home – which back in the 1960s could only come from Radio 4 and other longwave radio stations – but today comes from a wide variety of sources, including mobile phones, GPS and shipping radio.

It is also likely there would be world news, listened to at sea, describing a dramatic escalation of global tensions. “You might expect that the level of ‘proof’ which the commanding officer would be required to amass before opening the PM’s letter to be extremely high, and so it is,” one former navy submarine commander said.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/05/letters-of-last-resort-deciding-response-to-a-nuclear-attack-among-first-of-starmers-tasks

July 7, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Work to show UK nuclear ‘environmentally sustainable’ incomplete, 16 months after government announcement.

Stop Sizewell C executive director and company secretary Alison Downes believes labelling nuclear as green was a ploy to allow investors to justify their investment in the project. 

04 JUL, 2024 BY THOMAS JOHNSON,  https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/work-to-show-nuclear-environmentally-sustainable-incomplete-16-months-after-government-announcement-04-07-2024/

Government work to justify classifying nuclear energy generation as “environmentally sustainable” cannot be produced as it is incomplete, despite ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt making the announcement in the 2023 Spring Budget, NCE can reveal.

NCE submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) requesting all the documentation that was produced to back Hunt’s claim, but was refused because it is “still in the course of being completed”. 

In March 2023 during the Spring Budget statement, Hunt announced the government would be consulting on listing nuclear energy as “environmentally sustainable” in a bid to increase private investment in the sector. 

Hunt stated nuclear was a “critical source of cheap and reliable energy” to meeting the UK’s net zero obligations. 

On the reclassification of nuclear energy, the government’s budget document stated: “Nuclear energy will also be included in the green taxonomy, subject to consultation, encouraging private investment.” 

DESNZ’s reasoning for not responding to the FOI is due to the fact it has not completed the consultation as to whether it should go ahead with its plans to deem nuclear as “environmentally sustainable” which it started 16 months ago.  

DESNZ stated that it “does hold information in scope of this request, however we will not be releasing this at this time as it is covered by exemption 12(4)(d) which states ‘a public authority may refuse to disclose information to the extent that the request relates to material which is still in the course of completion, to unfinished documents or to incomplete data’. Your request falls within the scope of this provision because the requested information relates to material still in the course of completion”. 

It continued: “In order to apply the exemption detailed above we must also consider whether withholding such information is within the public interest. The consultation document to which the requested information relates has not been published, meaning the policy pertaining to the content of the consultation document is not finalised. For this reason, we feel it would not be in the public interest to release the information at this time.” 

In its Mobilising green investment: 2023 green finance strategy document related to the consultation for nuclear to be included within the green taxonomy, it states the government intended to consult on this in autumn last year. 

It further stated the consultation and getting this policy through was a priority that would be achieved by Q1 of this year. 

Reaction

Stop Sizewell C executive director and company secretary Alison Downes believes labelling nuclear as green was a ploy to allow investors to justify their investment in the project. 

She said: “The green taxonomy seems to be the final piece of the puzzle because the whole emphasis behind adopting the RAB model was to coax non-typical investors, like UK pension funds. 

“Obviously the theory behind labelling nuclear as green would allow them to tick another environmental, social and governance (ESG) box that would enable them to justify the investment.” 

Downes hypothesises that the reason behind the policy review not being completed yet could be due to the fact that Sizewell C’s recent attempt at leveraging private capital for the project in Spetember last year didn’t bring forward any atypical investors. 

“If investors have an appetite for nuclear then great but if they don’t, this isn’t going to tip the balance,” she said. 

“In our regular engagement with government officials they kept saying it’s coming, it’s coming, which in government speak it is ‘in due course’, which means sometime soon, maybe never. 

“It was very much plugged for Q1 this year and then it didn’t happen. 

“I wonder whether the fact they launched the capital raise last September where they had to get bidders to go through the pre-qualification process and it was apparent that very few were from that target market.  

“Suddenly they mave have thought if we’ve got a lot on our plate, is it a priority to push this taxonomy review through?” 

UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) secretary Richard Outram said it is astounding that the government was unable to come up with any justification for making the claim back in March 2023. 

He said: “It is notable that even now 16 months after Jeremy Hunt claimed that nuclear is a ‘sustainable and environmentally friendly energy generation solution’ that officials in the DESNZ despite their resources, are unable to come up with the justification that underlines this claim.  

“That says a lot.” 

Stop Sizewell C and other anti-nuclear groups maintain that nuclear is not a environmentally energy generation solution due to the waste it creates, its contamination of the earth and other nature surrounding the power plants and the highly emission intensive methods of decommissioning old plants. 

Outram continued: “The NFLAs believe that nuclear is simply too costly (Hinkley Point C’s original budget was £18bn now current real budget is £46bn and rising), too slow (Hinkley Point C was meant to be generating power to cook turkeys in time for christmmas 2017 but will now be 2031 earliest), always comes with the possibility of an accident, always cause environmental contamination, and leaves a massive and costly legacy of decommissioning redundant nuclear power plants and managing and disposing of nuclear waste (NDA current estimates £260bn).  

“Events in Ukraine have also demonstrated that nuclear power plants represent a massive target and a potential ‘dirty bomb’ in the event of war with a hostile state actor and Britain’s nuclear reactors have historically been powered by uranium from Russia which is now an unreliable supplier as it is that hostile state actor.” 

The NFLAs are instead calling on an energy strategy that prioritises the reduction of energy usage in the UK. 

July 7, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment