The Green Party's key manifesto pledges include:-Bringing forward the UK’s net zero target and investing billions in wind, solar & home insulation
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@simonzerafa @kibcol1049 Personally, I’d like to save a lot of money simply by dispensing with the little tin god that has never been used and can never be used.
It works for Ireland, Spain, Denmark, and everyone else bar France. What do you think would happen if we joined them?...and would anyone actually believe us if we said we no longer had them?
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@kibcol1049 more than that. Giving up nuclear weapons now would be like dripping blood in the water. It would signal weakness, and Putin and Trump see weaknesses as an invitation to increase their demands.
Another way to look at it is to ask yourselves how is the giving up nuclear weapons working out for Ukraine?
The question for the UK is the independence of the nuclear deterrent, the extortionate cost and the dependency on the US, both in terms of paying for their systems and agreeing to host US armaments on UK territory which makes the UK an automatic target in any war.
An interesting perspective on this is whether any adversary would actually believe that the UK didn't have nuclear weapons even if we announced that we didn't, because the capability will always be there.
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@markmason @kibcol1049 those are all excellent questions.
@Disputatore @markmason @kibcol1049 The warheads are ours, the Tridents leased from the US, the US has no control over our nukes, the US can't turn them off, indeed nobody can once they leave the launch tube that's part of the design.
Of the 250(ish) warheads we have an undisclosed number are always at sea and ready to fire when the government gives the order.
If the US cut off spares and maintenance programmes it would take 10 years for it to have an effect on the Navy.
I'd still disarm
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@epistatacadam @simonzerafa @kibcol1049 We do have an independent deterrent, the warheads are ours, but the delivery system is leased from the US costing us a bloody fortune to maintain.
France kept it's own nukes entirely separate from everyone else after lots of US pressure to 'save money' by standardising.
For the record I'd bin them off. Only Ukraine has ever chosen to do it but we're not sharing a land border with Putin.
@naturepunk @simonzerafa @kibcol1049 if we can't launch them unless the US says we can because our warheads are at some undefined depth in the ocean then effectively we don't have an independent deterrent.
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Oh well. They were doing well until the last item.
That's a really good one.
We just pay for the damned things. USA won't let us fire them...
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The question for the UK is the independence of the nuclear deterrent, the extortionate cost and the dependency on the US, both in terms of paying for their systems and agreeing to host US armaments on UK territory which makes the UK an automatic target in any war.
An interesting perspective on this is whether any adversary would actually believe that the UK didn't have nuclear weapons even if we announced that we didn't, because the capability will always be there.
@ReggieHere @Disputatore @kibcol1049
We would be better off and safer working with France than USA on defence (and there have been decades of working together since WW2 and the Cold War)
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@simonzerafa @kibcol1049 Personally, I’d like to save a lot of money simply by dispensing with the little tin god that has never been used and can never be used.
It works for Ireland, Spain, Denmark, and everyone else bar France. What do you think would happen if we joined them?That's the whole point.
Both sides know what the results would be from a first strike or attempted invasion etc.
So these things don't happen. It's called Deterrence.
In an ideal world no-one would have or need them. As you're probably aware we cannot trust our allies at the moment let alone our enemies.
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@kibcol1049 more than that. Giving up nuclear weapons now would be like dripping blood in the water. It would signal weakness, and Putin and Trump see weaknesses as an invitation to increase their demands.
Another way to look at it is to ask yourselves how is the giving up nuclear weapons working out for Ukraine?
@Disputatore
I think the main difference is we're not in walking distance from Russia... they'd have to cross a lot of land to get here and I suspect the locals would be somewhat irked.
@kibcol1049 -
That's a really good one.
We just pay for the damned things. USA won't let us fire them...
That's not my understanding of how an independent system would operate but clearly such above top secret information is widespread on Mastodon.
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That's not my understanding of how an independent system would operate but clearly such above top secret information is widespread on Mastodon.
@simonzerafa @Walrus Can you imagine closed source software to launch missiles where the supplier has not pre-programmed the inability to accept certain coordinates? Mainland USA for example?
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@simonzerafa @Walrus Can you imagine closed source software to launch missiles where the supplier has not pre-programmed the inability to accept certain coordinates? Mainland USA for example?
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