“It’s just not possible for the UK to have an independent foreign policy, or defence and security policies, if it remains attached at the hip to the US nuclear programme.”
By Kate Hudson, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Worried about Trump coming back to the White House? His finger back on the nuclear button would be bad news.
He’s the man who commissioned and deployed ‘usable’ nukes and talked about restarting nuclear testing. But the years of the Biden presidency have also seen a significant escalation of nuclear danger, two US-backed wars with nuclear potential, and an increase in the global nuclear weapons tally for the first time since the Cold War.
Whoever is in the White House, it’s clear: Britain has to break its ‘special nuclear relationship’ with the US. We’re all familiar with the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the US, basically tying Britain into really bad foreign policy decisions. But not so many people know about the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) – the world’s most extensive nuclear sharing agreement. Even though it comes up for renewal in parliament every ten years, few seem to know of its existence, or the extent to which it make us dependent on the US – or indeed that it underpins the wider US/UK ‘special relationship’.
Known in full as the ‘Agreement between the UK and the USA for cooperation in the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defence Purposes’, the treaty initially established an agreement between both countries to exchange classified information to develop their respective nuclear weapon systems.
At the start, the MDA prohibited the transfer of nuclear weapons, but an amendment in 1959 allowed for the transfer of nuclear materials and equipment between both countries up to a certain deadline. This amendment is extended through a renewal of the treaty every ten years, most recently in 2014 without any parliamentary debate or vote. The British public and parliamentarians initially found out about that extension and ratification when President Obama informed the United States Congress.
Renewing such agreements on the nod, without transparency or accountability is never a good thing. When it ties us so tightly to nuclear cooperation with the White House this is an even greater cause for concern. The time has come to really vigorously oppose this Agreement.
It also puts us at odds with our commitments under the NPT: the relationship and activities enshrined in the MDA confirm an indefinite commitment by the US and UK to collaborate on nuclear weapons technology and violates both countries’ obligations as signatories to the NPT. The NPT states that countries should undertake ‘to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to… nuclear disarmament’. Rather than working together to get rid of their nuclear weapons, the UK and US are collaborating on further advancing their nuclear arsenals.
Indeed, a 2004 legal advice paper by Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin concluded that it is ‘strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’, as it implies ‘continuation and indeed enhancement of the nuclear programme, not progress towards its discontinuation’.
On every level the MDA is something that must be challenged. It’s just not possible for the UK to have an independent foreign policy, or defence and security policies, if it remains attached at the hip to the US nuclear programme. When the US seems hell-bent on taking us into war after war, unquestioning allegiance from the UK cannot continue.
The MDA is up for renewal again this year. Now is the time to start asking the questions, raising the protest, and making the case for independence. It’s time for the special nuclear relationship to end.
- You can watch: ‘Exposed! the secret US/UK nuclear weapons agreement’, the CND and Declassified UK webinar which took place on Thursday, 15th February.
- Kate Hudson is the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
- You can follow Kate on Twitter/X; and follow the CND on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
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