The Peace Party supports the Global Campaign on Military Spending UK in its response to the UK Government’s Global Britain in a Competitive Age: Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, published on March 16, 2021, and the related Defence Command Paper, Defence in a Competitive Age (22 March). The Party joins GCOMS UK in having grave concerns about both documents.
The Peace Party notes that GCOMS UK rejects:
(a) the main assumptions of these policies, notably that the complexities of the geo-political environment require the UK to boost its hostile posture through increased investment, especially in high-tech weaponry. We believe this posture is already exacerbating international tensions, in particular with China and Russia. It will stimulate an arms race to dominate other states through mastery of a whole range of emerging technologies, as well as boosting older systems such as nuclear weapons.
(b) the 40% increase in the cap on nuclear warheads, taking the UK’s potential capacity to 260. We join countless other organisations and experts in arguing that this constitutes an act of vertical proliferation violating both the spirit of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the UK’s responsibilities as a Depositary State. It will only encourage others to break their own commitments, thus engendering a dangerous spiral of mutual threat.
(c) the increase in military spending (already announced in November 2020), amounting to £24 billion on top of existing budget levels. This represents an average £6bn increase over the four years 2021-25. This is the largest percentage increase in over 70 years.
The Policies and Principles of the Peace Party:
(i) would never allow the Party to support the above proposals of the UK Government labelled (a) to (c), and will prepare the ground for a wholly different policy framework, looking at the subject from the angle of human security rather than a spurious notion of ‘Global Britain’ that appears to be rooted in outdated imperial pretensions;
(ii) supports urgent discussion of the UK’s participation in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At the very least the UK should commit to attending the 1st Conference of Parties to the Treaty following the statement from the UN Secretary-General’s office saying that the proposed UK increase in nuclear warheads constitutes a breach of its obligations under Article VI of the NPT. The Peace Party regrets that there is no explanation of how the Government believes that its plan is consistent with its treaty obligation to make progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Peace Party would support a positive contribution to the NPT Review Conference in August;
(iii) would never support plans for new high-tech weapons programmes, utilising artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, offensive cyber capabilities, and the further militarisation of space but would support approaches involving threat reduction, disarmament and co-operative solutions.