Latest news with #GreenhamCommon
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Greenham Common women urge new generation to ‘rise up' against nuclear threat
In August 1981, 36 people, mainly women, walked from Wales to RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire to protest against the storing of US cruise missiles in the UK. They were alarmed about the imminent threat the weapons posed for themselves and for their children, they later said. More than 40 years on, the prospect of American nuclear weapons stationed on British soil has returned with urgent focus. And for some of the women who were at the Greenham Common women's peace camp, it is time for dissenting UK citizens to rise up again. In the wake of the UK government's announcement this week that it plans to significantly expand its nuclear arsenal by buying a squadron of American fighter jets capable of carrying US tactical warheads, key figures at Greenham hope a new generation of campaigners will take up the baton. Ann Pettitt, now 78, devised the original idea for a march that led to the formation of the camp. At its height, more than 70,000 women were there and it became the biggest female-led protest since women's suffrage. It was, as Pettitt says, 'actually successful' in managing to hugely raise awareness of the presence of US nuclear warheads in the UK – the last of which left RAF Lakenheath in 2008. The camp went on after the Greenham Common missiles had gone in 1991 and the base was closed in 1992. The remaining campaigners left Greenham Common after exactly 19 years. Pettitt said this week's news had left her 'disillusioned' but she was hopeful that a younger generation would protest. 'It certainly calls for protest, because it's so stupid,' she said. 'Nuclear weapons are like the emperor's new clothes, they can't be used and if they are they backfire because of radiation spreads and they target civilians. We should simply not have them.' The decision to buy 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional arms and also the US B61-12 gravity bomb, a variant of which has more than three times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, has energised the anti-nuclear movement, said Sophie Bolt, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The group has organised a protest on Saturday at RAF Marham in Norfolk, and Bolt said Greenham women – many of whom are in their 70s – still form the 'backbone' of the resistance. 'These are women who have got a huge history and totally understand how high the stakes are,' she said. 'Their determination, creativity and strategic thinking is just really incredible. They are a massive inspiration and so enriching to the campaign.' One of those women, Angie Zelter, 74, went on to found the civil disobedience campaign Snowball and the anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares. In 2019, aged 68, she was found guilty of a minor public order offence for protesting with Extinction Rebellion. 'We had a saying, 'carry Greenham home', and from the moment I was there that's what I've done,' she said. But Zelter said it was also time for a new generation of Greenham women. 'I think we need a new women's movement, but I think actually we need everybody to rise up, quite frankly. All we can do as elders is support younger activists and give advice, solidarity and support.' There was no time for squabbles in despondency, she added. 'I hope it is a moment of mass realisation when we come together now and say, look, enough is enough … It is a moment of hope that people will realise that they've got to come together and protest loud and clearly.' Pettitt said those not ready to man the barricades could still join the struggle – by the simple act of writing a letter to MPs to protest about the 'outrageous' decision to buy the jets without parliamentary debate. 'The way to get it discussed in parliament is to write your MP a letter,' she said. 'Parliament is still very archaic … the humble letter is part of that kind of archaic functioning that is surprisingly effective.' Another original walker, Sue Lent, now 73 and a councillor on Cardiff council, said the general public had lost sight of the anti-nuclear movement, but she hoped that a silver lining from the news this week was that younger and older activists would start 'joining the dots'. '1981 is a long time ago,' she said. 'But hopefully the spirit still lives on and can be revived.'
South Wales Argus
4 days ago
- Politics
- South Wales Argus
Plaid Cymru MP criticises Palestine Action proscription
The party's Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, spoke out following the UK Government's decision to designate the pro-Palestine group as a terrorist organisation. She said: "Non-violent protest is a cornerstone of any healthy democracy, enabling people to challenge injustice and to hold those in power to account. "Banning organisations that speak out against war and genocide is a dangerous erosion of our fundamental right to free speech. "From Greenham Common to the Iraq War, history shows that non-violent direct action has been essential in shaping public discourse and advancing justice." She said that the UK 'prides itself' on protecting freedom of expression before highlighting that silencing those voices undermines democratic engagement. She added: "Proscribing Palestine Action appears to be a disproportionate and unnecessary move by the UK Government." Ms Saville Roberts said that it sets a worrying precedent for other countries across the world.
North Wales Chronicle
5 days ago
- Politics
- North Wales Chronicle
Palestine Action proscription 'unnecessary', says Gwynedd MP
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she will proscribe Palestine Action under anti-terror law after group activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two planes red. The decision to band the group would affectively brandish it as a terrorist organisation and, if passed in Parliament, would make membership of and support for the group illegal. Speaking in the Chamber yesterday (June 23), Liz Saville Roberts MP asked if Ms Cooper "recognised the risk implicit in proscribing as terrorist organisations protest groups calling out war". MORE: Plaid to PM: 'Don't follow Trump into Middle East conflict' Ms Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader, said on behalf of the party: 'Non-violent protest is a cornerstone of any healthy democracy, enabling people to challenge injustice and to hold those in power to account. "Banning organisations that speak out against war and genocide is a dangerous erosion of our fundamental right to free speech. "From Greenham Common to the Iraq War, history shows that non-violent direct action has been essential in shaping public discourse and advancing justice. 'Proscribing Palestine Action appears to be a disproportionate and unnecessary move by the UK Government. "The UK prides itself on protecting freedom of expression but silencing such voices undermines democratic engagement and sets a worrying precedent for other countries across the world.'
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Annabel Cole obituary
My mother, Annabel Cole, who has died aged 101, led a remarkably varied life as well as a very long one. It spanned a childhood in France, a spell in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during the second world war, protesting at Greenham Common, local politics, teaching and painting. She was descended from the Quaker Fry family, her maternal grandfather being the Bloomsbury art critic Roger Fry. Her mother, Pamela Fry, fell in love with a Romanian Jew, Avram Diamand, at art school in Paris, and Annabel was born in their studio there. The family moved to Britain in 1932, as the whisperings of impending fascism became louder. She attended a range of schools, including Maldon grammar school and Chelmsford high school in Essex, and the progressive boarding school Frensham Heights in Surrey, before evacuating with most of her family to Canada early in the second world war. Annabel spent several years working on farms in Canada before returning to England in 1943 to serve with the WAAF until after the end of the war. She had an eventful time in the WAAF that included helping to organise a successful rebellion against the substandard quarters her unit were ordered to move to. She married John Cole, a solicitor, in 1948 and had three children – me, Peter and Rachel – over the next six years. Fiercely intelligent, she became increasingly frustrated by her role as mother and housewife, and once the children were at school she was able to expand her horizons. Attending St Osyth's teacher training college in Clacton during the 1960s gave her the intellectual stimulation she had been missing; afterwards she taught in several primary schools in the Essex area, the last one of which involved helping visually impaired children. Annabel's retirement in the mid-1970s began another chapter in her life, and perhaps the most colourful. She had been an active opponent of nuclear weapons for many years and became secretary of Colchester CND. A frequent visitor to Greenham Common, she was arrested on one occasion (though spared a prison sentence) for cutting through the barbed wire perimeter fence. She remained politically involved well into her 90s and a distinctive (though tiny) figure on the streets of Lewes in East Sussex, where she lived for much of her retirement. She moved into a care home only at the age of 99, and even then very much on her own terms. John died in 1991. She is survived by her three children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
