Trident campaign success

Today we heard some good news. We’ve persuaded the government to postpone plans to spend billions on replacing Trident. We’ve stopped them wasting billions on new nukes as we face massive cuts to schools, hospitals, and the police. It’s more proof that people power works.

Thousands of us worked together. Together we changed government policy. We teamed up with Greenpeace. We built a huge petition, sent thousands of e-mails to our MPs, and thousands more e-mails to ministers.

We took on powerful interests to win this campaign. Big bits of the political establishment wanted Trident to go ahead. The huge arms companies were lobbying furiously to get their contracts. Hardliners in the media pushed scare stories to try and boost military funding.

Trident hasn’t gone away for good. David Cameron now says he’d spend the money in five years time. That means we’ve still got a job to do. We need to keep an eye on the government. We need to be ready to speak out next time they try to divert money from public services to nuclear weapons.

Today we’ve seen what happens when thousands and thousands of us pool our resources to change events. So above all, we need to make sure 38 Degrees keeps growing as a people powered campaigning force.