{"id":163703,"date":"2024-06-27T20:11:18","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T20:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=163703"},"modified":"2024-06-27T20:13:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T20:13:36","slug":"britain-spends-12000-a-minute-on-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/britain-spends-12000-a-minute-on-nuclear-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain Spends \u00a312,000 A Minute On Nuclear Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain spends a larger portion of its military budget on nuclear weapons than any other state, a major report reveals.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Britain tested nuclear weapons in the Pacific in the 1950s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rishi Sunak\u2019s government is putting 12% of defence expenditure \u2013 equivalent to \u00a312,000 every minute \u2013 towards the UK\u2019s arsenal of at least 225 warheads.<\/p>\n

Sunak increased spending on nuclear weapons last year by 17% to \u00a36.5 billion \u2013 a greater increase than any other nuclear power except the US.<\/p>\n

Over the last five years UK expenditure rose by a staggering 43%.<\/p>\n

The startling figures appear in new research<\/a> by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a widely respected group that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.<\/p>\n

ICAN calculates that Britain is the world\u2019s fourth highest spender on nuclear weapons after the US, China and Russia.<\/p>\n

Nuclear Starmer<\/strong><\/p>\n

The group\u2019s report comes at a time when the Labour leadership is championing nuclear weapons. The party\u2019s manifesto states: \u201cOur commitment to the UK\u2019s nuclear deterrent is absolute<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This spending commitment is in stark contrast to Keir Starmer\u2019s extreme caution when it comes to investing in public services.<\/p>\n

The party describes the \u201cindependent nuclear deterrent<\/em>\u201d as \u201cthe bedrock of Labour\u2019s plan to keep Britain safe<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it is far from independent. Regular flights from the US carry material that are essential ingredients of Britain\u2019s Trident nuclear missile system.<\/p>\n

A Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) between Britain and the US enshrines Whitehall\u2019s reliance on the Pentagon for essential technology.<\/p>\n

The agreement, which is due to be renewed this year, is incorporated in US law. Yet it has no legal status in Britain and has never been the subject of a substantial debate or vote in parliament.<\/p>\n

The Liberal Democrats\u2019 policy is identical to those of the Conservatives and Labour, saying they will \u201cmaintain the UK\u2019s nuclear deterrent with four submarines providing continuous at-sea deterrence<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Scottish National Party has a long record of being opposed to nuclear weapons, which it says are \u201cwrong strategically, morally and financially<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It adds that it supports long-term investment in the Trident submarine base in Faslane as a conventional military base.<\/p>\n

The Green party says it would \u201cdismantle Britain\u2019s entire Trident nuclear deterrent and remove all foreign nuclear weapons from UK soil<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporate subsidies<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ICAN report also shows how companies like BAE Systems and Rolls Royce spend millions lobbying for contracts.<\/p>\n

BAE Systems, Britain\u2019s largest arms company, received nearly \u00a32.6bn for nuclear weapons-related work.<\/p>\n

It spent around \u00a33.9m lobbying governments and had 42 meetings with senior government officials last year, according to the ICAN report.<\/p>\n

ICAN accuses recent British governments of an \u201cirresponsible lack of transparency<\/em>\u201d over the cost of the country\u2019s nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n

Trident has been widely estimated to cost more than \u00a3200bn over a 30-year lifespan.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Defence has not challenged the figure but has never published any estimate of its own.<\/p>\n

A recent report by the National Audit Office warned that the cost of replacing Britain\u2019s nuclear weapons system will cost more than \u00a399bn over the coming decade, an increase of more than \u00a338bn in a year.<\/p>\n

The ageing Vanguard-class fleet of Trident submarines have had to endure longer than planned patrols because of unexpected technical problems and the plan to replace them with a new Dreadnought-class have been subjected to delays.<\/p>\n

In 2016, a Trident missile veered off course during a test firing. A subsequent \u00a317m test earlier this year saw a missile fired by HMS Vanguard<\/em> fail and land in the sea close to the launch site.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nJune 27, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britain spends a larger portion of its military budget on nuclear weapons than any other state, a major report reveals. Rishi Sunak\u2019s government is putting 12% of defence expenditure \u2013 equivalent to \u00a312,000 every minute \u2013 towards the UK\u2019s arsenal of at least 225 warheads. Sunak increased spending on nuclear weapons last year by 17% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censored-news-military-5127-en-censored-sensational-news-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163703"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163713,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163703\/revisions\/163713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}