31 August 2005 - Britain’s ageing nuclear arsenal must be scrapped and not replaced if international efforts to stop nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea and Iran are to succeed, Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has warned.

Speaking at a conference organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) – of which she is a national council member – Dr Lucas will warn that replacing the ‘Trident’ system will increase the risks of an accidental or terrorist-planned nuclear explosion, break international law, and cost billions of pounds of taxpayers cash.

“Nuclear weapons have been responsible for the indiscriminate deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians worldwide, and their use has been declared unlawful by the International Court of Justice in The Hague,” she will say.

“Tony Blair cannot hope to persuade states such as Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions whilst the UK maintains and updates its own nuclear arsenal.

“The risk of nuclear weapons use - by accident, design or miscalculation - is increasing due to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new States, the possibility of non-State access to nuclear weapons and bomb-building materials, and the expanded nuclear weapons use doctrines of the nuclear weapon states.”

The Green Party MEP, who is a vice-president of the European Parliament’s Peace Initiatives cross-party group, will make her comments at the Preventing Trident Replacement Strategic Planning Conference in London on Saturday.

Speaking alongside Jeremy Corbyn MP and former CND Chair Bruce Kent, Dr Lucas said Greens in the European Parliament would continue to campaign for the EU to take a global lead in ridding the world of nuclear weapons – and for the EU to put pressure on France and the UK to scrap their nuclear arsenals and declare a nuclear-free EU.

ENDS