14 March 2007 - Today’s expected decision to replace the UK ’s Trident nuclear weapons system is illegal, immoral, obscenely expensive – and utterly irrelevant to the real security threats we face today, according to Green MEP Caroline Lucas.

Dr Lucas, who is also a national council member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition, said: “Voting in favour of replacing Trident is a shameful waste of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash and it sends out a deadly signal to the rest of the world: ‘we don’t care about nuclear proliferation, so neither should you’.

“It is completely hypocritical. How can we lecture countries like Iran on international law designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons when we are prepared to so blithely ignore it ourselves?

“And this at a time when the European Commission has warned that nuclear proliferation is the biggest security threat we face: today’s decision is truly nuclear madness.”

MPs at Westminster are to vote this evening on whether or not to replace Britain ’s Trident nuclear weapons system, at an estimated cost of £76bn over the lifetime of the weapons.

The Government’s support for new nuclear weapons looks set to be approved – but only thanks to the support of pro-nuclear Tory MPs. New Labour faces its largest Commons rebellion since the decision to go to war in Iraq , and the issue has already claimed more than one ministerial scalp.

Dr Lucas, also a co-founder and Co-President of the European Parliament’s cross-party peace group, added: “The Government’s support for Trident is yet another example of its failure to grasp the urgency of climate change. Imagine if its anticipated £76bn costs were invested in energy conservation and renewable energy generation – we might actually have a chance of cutting CO2 levels sufficiently to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

"Instead, we are left with an obscenely expensive white elephant that is likely to the world a more dangerous place – at best it is utterly irrelevant to the real security threats we face, chief among them climate change, and a missed opportunity to spend the cash on tackling them.”

ENDS

Read Caroline’s blog on the Guardian’s Comment is Free