The Mirror August 27, 2003, Wednesday

Tommy Sheridan MSP

THIS week's column is brought to you from the infamous Bar-L. I'm serving a seven-day sentence in Glasgow's Barlinnie Jail for refusing to pay a pounds 200 fine. That was my punishment for joining a peaceful protest against the inhumanity of nuclear weapons. These are the most destructive weapons ever created by man. If I disarmed someone on the rampage with a machine gun in a town centre I'd be awarded a medal for bravery. Yet the nuclear submarines protected by the razor wire at Faslane carry bombs capable of wiping out all human, animal and plant life.

During the Iraq war, we heard military experts endlessly drone on about so-called "smart bombs". These were bombs that supposedly could be guided around corners and up narrow alleyways. Certainly, these bombs sound like they have more brains than the President of the USA, who gives the impression he could hardly find his way around the Oval Office. Yet countless thousands of Iraqi civilians perished.

I don't know how many were killed by smart bombs and how many were killed by the cluster bombs and the depleted uranium shells that are deliberately designed to spread death far and wide. But who knows what would have been the death toll if the Trident submarines which were sent out to the Gulf had been used.

Iraq today would almost certainly be uninhabitable for generations to come. Even the International Court of Justice has declared the Faslane nuclear arsenal illegal. That's because they are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction capable of wiping out entire continents. I've been attacked by Tory politicians for costing the taxpayer money by going to jail.

Funnily enough, these are the same politicians who are always calling for more jails to be built and more people to be locked up.

And they're the same politicians who've already squandered pounds 30billion of taxpayers' money on Trident. Neither I nor any other peace campaigner relishes the thought of a jail sentence. Not everyone is in a position to refuse to pay their fine and go to jail.

BUT sometimes dramatic action is needed to turn the spotlight on the monster lurking on our own doorstep. Imagine the outcry if a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the planet was stationed on the Hudson River on the outskirts of New York, or at the mouth of the Thames.

In the dangerously unstable world that George Bush and Tony Blair have created, the west of Scotland must now be a serious target for a terrorist revenge attack. But for the people who run the Western military machine from their bunkers in Washington and London, the natives of Caledonia are almost as expendable as the people of Iraq. It's time for the people of Scotland to say no way. In an independent, socialist, nuclear-free Scotland we would find plenty of other uses for the £1.5 billion a year it costs to maintain the nuclear submarines at Faslane.

HIGHER pensions, for a start. New hospitals and decent public services. What about better pay for ordinary workers? Sure, closing Faslane as a nuclear submarine base will lead to a loss of jobs. So did the decision to stop public hangings. Gallows manufacturers everywhere went out of business. But, with the money saved on scrapping nuclear weapons, the 5000 workers at Faslane could continue to be paid the same salaries while retraining. Economists have calculated that the amount of money spent to sustain 5,000 jobs at Faslane could create 30,000 socially-useful jobs. What a mixed-up world we inhabit.

Tony Blair and George Bush kill thousands and maim hundreds of thousands to get rid of fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Then some peace campaigners sit down on the road to get rid of real weapons of mass destruction. But who is it who goes to jail? As Tony Blair's political heroine, Margaret Thatcher, once pointed out, "It's a funny old world."