nuclear-news

Anas Sarwar U-turns on Scottish Labour nuclear weapons policy

SCOTTISH Labour are facing calls to clarify their stance on the UK’s
nuclear weapons after Anas Sarwar appeared to pull a unilateral U-turn at
First Minister’s Questions. Speaking at Holyrood on Thursday, the Labour
group leader called for First Minister John Swinney and the SNP to reverse
their stance on Trident – the UK’s nuclear weapons system which is
housed on the Clyde.

The SNP oppose nuclear weapons and oppose renewing
Trident, want to see the system removed from Scotland, and support an
international treaty banning the bomb.

Previously, Scottish Labour’s
membership passed a motion opposing the renewal of Trident – and in 2021
Sarwar backed it despite Keir Starmer’s support for the policy. Sarwar
has now suggested that he supports the UK’s nuclear weapons being
renewed. Speaking at FMQs, the Scottish Labour leader said: “Global
events are reshaping the world before our eyes. This is a generation
defining moment, and all political parties and both of Scotland’s
governments must adjust to this new reality and rethink previous red
lines.”

 The National 13th March 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25005720.anas-sarwar-seems-u-turn-scottish-labour-nuclear-weapons-policy/

March 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Great British Nuclear explains how it will mitigate risks to SMR programme.

13 Mar, 2025 By Tom Pashby

Great British Nuclear (GBN) has explained how it plans to overcome the key risks to the small modular reactor (SMR) programme is it running and that it plans to establish of SMR development companies (DevCos) to take the projects forward.

  The updates were shared in its inaugural 2024 Annual
report and accounts for the 2023/2024 financial year.

It is assumed that GBN will select two vendors to deliver one SMR each, but this was recently
called into question by sources speaking to the Telegraph who said the
chancellor may cut spending at GBN as part of the Spending Review which is
due on 11 June 2025. GBN chief executive officer Gwen Parry-Jones said:
“The UK’s nuclear sector has had some well-documented challenges, ones
that GBN has been set up to navigate.” She did not spell out the
challenges.

“SMRs have not yet been deployed anywhere at scale and their
first-of-a-kind (FOAK) nature presents unique considerations and complex
challenges for us to overcome.” She reassured, however, that she is
“committed to ensure that GBN is an adaptable and resilient organisation
that is flexible and evolves as conditions change, but with our eyes always
firmly fixed on the future to deliver our long-term mission and value for
the UK”.

The report lays out the “principal risks” which GBN believes
the SMR programme faces, along with “key mitigation measures”. The
risks are centred around technology maturity, the ambitious programme
timeline, resourcing, funding and financing, stakeholder alignment,
‘contractual and procurement complexity’, site readiness and cyber
threat.

On technology maturity, it said: “Due to the first of a kind
(FOAK) nature of the technology, providers may not be able to meet
strategic objectives, including timely delivery, value for money and
obtaining regulatory approval. “This may delay approval timelines, affect
project milestones or cause an SMR project to fail.” It says that the SMR
competition that it is running will assess the technologies and mitigate
this risk. However, it also reveals that it will retain the option of, in
addition to the SMR competition winners, selecting a “reserve contractor,
to provide contingency against one provider failing to meet agreed
standards”.

GBN lists four other mitigations, including stating it could
or would provide “predetermined exit points” from projects “should a
project exceed cost estimates or timelines stretch beyond acceptable
parameters”. Regarding risk relating to “funding and financing”, it
says: “GBN’s available funding may be insufficient to resource and
deliver the programme to the planned timetable, e.g. should a change arise
from any change in government policy or in its budgetary priorities.

“A reduction in funding could also be triggered by market conditions or
external events such as an external nuclear event affecting public
sentiment towards nuclear safety.

 New Civil Engineer 13th March 2025, https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/great-british-nuclear-explains-how-it-will-mitigate-risks-to-smr-programme-13-03-2025/

March 15, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

More Guns, Less Butter: Starmer’s Defence Spending Splash

To pursue such rearmament, Starmer has decided to take the axe to the aid budget, 

March 8, 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.net/more-guns-less-butter-starmers-defence-spending-splash/

The urge to throw more money at defence budgets across a number of countries has become infectious. It was bound to happen with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, given his previous insistence that US allies do more to fatten their own armies rather than rely on the largesse of Washington’s power. Spend, spend, spend is the theme, and the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has shown himself willing to join this wasteful indulgence.

On February 25, just prior to his visit to Washington, Starmer announced that spending on defence would reach 2.5% of GDP from April 2027. In the next parliament, it would rise to 3%. “In recent years,” states a UK government press release, “the world has been reshaped by global instability, including Russian aggression in Ukraine, increasing threats from malign actors, rapid technological change, and the accelerating impacts of climate change.”  

Almost predictably, the term “Cold War” makes its retro appearance, with the spending increase the largest since that conflict of wilful misunderstandings and calculated paranoia. Russia figures prominently, as do “malign actors” who have burdened “the working people of Britain” with “increased energy bills, or threats to British interests and values.”

The governing Labour Party has also gone a bit gung-ho with the military–industrial establishment. In an open letter reported by the Financial Times, over 100 Labour MPs and peers thought it wise that ethical rules restricting investment by banks and investment firms in defence companies be relaxed. Financial institutions, the letter argues, should “rethink ESG [environmental, social and governance] mechanisms that often wrongly exclude all defence investment.” It was also important to address the issue of those “unnecessary barriers” defence firms face when “doing business in the UK.” Among such barriers are those irritating matters such as money laundering checks banks are obliged to conduct when considering the finance needs of defence and security firms, along with seeking assurances that they are not financing weapons banned under international law.

That these uncontroversial rules are now being seen as needless barriers to an industry that persists in shirking accountability is a sign of creeping moral flabbiness. Across Europe, the defence and arms lobbyists, those great exploiters of fictional insecurity, are feeling more confident than they have in years. They can rely on such figures as European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, who stated on March 4 that, “We are in an era of rearmament. And Europe is ready to massively boost its defence spending.”

To pursue such rearmament, Starmer has decided to take the axe to the aid budget, reducing it from its current level of 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027. It was, as the press release goes on to mention, a “difficult choice” and part of “the evolving nature of the threat and the strategic shift required to meet it.” The Conservatives approved the measure, and the populist Reform UK would have little reason to object, seeing it had been its policy suggestion at the last election.

It was a decision that sufficiently troubled the international development minister, Anneliese Dodds, to quit the cabinet. In a letter to the prime minister, Dodds remarked that, while Starmer wished “to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems,” doing so would “be impossible … given the depth of the cut.”

Making the Office of Overseas Development Assistance absorb such a reduction would also see Britain “pull-out from numerous African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations – at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence.” It would be isolated from various multilateral bodies, see “a withdrawal from regional banks and a reduced commitment to the World Bank.” Influence would also be lost at such international fora as the G7 and G20.

Defence establishment figures have also regarded the decision to reduce aid with some consternation. General Lord Richards, former Chief of Defence Staff, saw the sense of an increase in military spending but not at the expense of the aid budget. “The notion that we must weaken one to strengthen the other is not just misleading but dangerous,” opined Richards in The Telegraph. “A lack of investment and development will only fuel greater instability, increase security threats and place a heavier burden on our Armed Forces.”The aid budgets of wealthy states should never be seen as benevolent projects. Behind the charitable endeavour is a calculation that speaks more to power (euphemised as “soft”) than kindness. Aid keeps the natives of other countries clothed, fed and sufficiently sustained not to want to stray to other contenders. The sentiment was expressed all too clearly by a disappointed Dodds: a smaller UK aid budget would embolden an already daring Russia to fill the vacuum. How fascinating, then, that a daring Russia, its threatening posture inflated and exaggerated, is one of the primary reasons prompting an increase in Britain’s defence spending in the first place.

March 11, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Changing nuclear policy would make ‘SNP as bad as Tories’, MSP warns

By Xander Elliards Content Editor, 9th March

CHANGING the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons would be a “panic measure” demonstrating the same lack of principles as the Tories or Labour, an MSP has warned.

 Bill Kidd, who is also co-president of the
global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, issued a warning to his party after its long-standing policy
on nuclear weapons came under fire on multiple fronts – including from
within.

As the fear of Russia rises in Europe, Labour have chosen nuclear
weapons as an issue on which to attack the SNP. Just this week, Prime
Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the party’s stance on nuclear weapons
in the Commons – followed by Labour MP Joani Reid and Scottish Secretary
Ian Murray doing the same two days later. Then, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s
former Westminster leader, joined the calls for the SNP to change tack on
nuclear weaponry – saying the party should support multilateral
disarmament instead of unilateral disarmament.

The question being asked is
simple: will the SNP stick with their support for the removal of nuclear
weapons from Scotland on day one of independence? Or, will they change tack
and say nukes can stay on the Clyde indefinitely (which, in practice, is
what waiting for multilateral disarmament means)?

For Kidd, who spoke to
the Sunday National from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the answer is clear. “There may be increasing
pressure from the UK, from the UK political parties – and in fact I
expect that there will be – but that is another example of why the SNP
should stand firmly as an anti-nuclear [party],” he said.

 The National 9th March 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/24992541.changing-nuclear-policy-make-snp-bad-tories-msp-warns/

March 10, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | Leave a comment