Rob Edwards

John Ainslie 1954-2016

from The Guardian, 2 November 2016

In 1992, when the first submarine armed with Trident nuclear missiles arrived on the Clyde near Glasgow, John Ainslie was in a canoe. Along with a flotilla of other protesters, he was buzzing the huge dark boat as it cut through the cold water. He had just been appointed as the coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND), and he was arrested by the Ministry of Defence police.

John, who has died of cancer aged 62, was the quiet, unassuming heart of the peace movement in Scotland for the last 25 years. As well as putting himself on the line, he became an authoritative and internationally respected nuclear researcher. He was the author of 20 reports on aspects of nuclear policy, starting in 1992 with Cracking Under Pressure, about defects in nuclear submarine reactors.

His most recent report, in July, written with Dan Plesch from the University of London, argued that successive UK governments had deceived the public by pretending that Trident was a British bomb when it is actually American. Other reports exposed Trident’s safety flaws, its targeting strategies, and its secret workings. In 2008, he discovered problems with a mysterious top-secret warhead ingredient known as fogbank.

He backed Scottish independence as a way of triggering UK nuclear disarmament. In the run-up to the referendum in 2014 he showed how Trident warheads could be removed from the Clyde within two years – and how they could not safely be based anywhere else in the UK.

John played a crucial role in breaking the story of the Trident submariner, William McNeilly, who went on the run in 2015 after alleging 30 safety and security flaws. John was a skilled user of freedom of information law, and helped to prise open the MoD’s secretive nuclear citadel and expose its inadequacies.

Tributes paid after peace campaigner, John Ainslie, dies

from Sunday Herald, 23 October 2016

Warm tributes from across the political divide have been paid to John Ainslie, the veteran co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND), who died on Friday after a long battle with cancer.

The SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Greens, socialists, trade unionists, journalists and fellow campaigners were among the many who hailed him as a quiet and unassuming legend of the peace movement.

Ainslie, who joined SCND as a full-time worker in 1992, has been a hugely influential figure in nuclear policy. His numerous expert reports and his detailed grasp of nuclear technology won him respect and admiration from peers around the world, and he was often quoted in the Sunday Herald and elsewhere.

He was also an active campaigner. He buzzed the first Trident submarine to arrive in the Clyde in a canoe, drove around Glasgow in the early hours of the morning following nuclear bomb convoys and addressed countless meetings and protests.

“My thoughts are with John's family and Scottish CND,” tweeted Sturgeon. “John was such a committed campaigner against nuclear weapons.”

Upgrade to Trident targeting prompts fears of US control

from Sunday Herald, 28 February 2016

A major upgrade of a top-secret system for targeting Trident warheads has sparked fears that UK nuclear weapons are effectively under the control of the US.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has completed an eight-year overhaul of the high-security computer software used to determine which cities and military facilities across the world would be hit by nuclear bombs in the event of war. Details of the upgrade are “classified”.

Critics claim that the UK system is critically dependent on US software, and that it’s the US president who is really in command. But this is denied by the MoD, which insists that that the targeting system is “one of the sovereign components” of the nuclear deterrent.

An unpublicised article in an MoD technical journal in December 2015 disclosed that scientists and engineers had been thanked for bringing Trident’s targeting system into “a new era”. The upgrade project had required “zero tolerance of failure” and encountered “considerable challenges”, it said.

“This represents the culmination of eight years of design, development, production and test effort that comprises over 3.5 million lines of software code and in excess of 300,000 man-hours.”

Work was co-ordinated by the MoD’s strategic weapons project team based at the “UK Software Facility (UKSF)”. The MoD refused to say where this facility is located, but it is believed to be in a bunker hidden under a grass mound behind barbed wire near the town of Corsham in Wiltshire.

Row over removal of radiation warnings from nuclear convoys

from Sunday Herald, 21 February 2016

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has come under fierce fire for removing radiation warning signs from the nuclear convoys that regularly trundle Scotland’s roads.

The well-known trefoil symbol indicating hazardous radioactivity is no longer used on lorries transporting plutonium or highly enriched uranium for bombs. According to the MoD, this is so it can maintain its policy “to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons.”

The move has been fiercely criticised by SNP and Labour politicians for endangering the public and emergency services. Campaigners say the MoD is putting secrecy ahead of public safety.

In the past vehicles carrying “special nuclear materials” such as plutonium and uranium displayed the warning signs, though those carrying nuclear weapons did not. But following a decision to use the same vehicles for both kinds of shipments, the MoD dispensed with all radiation symbols in 2012.

The change was only revealed in a parliamentary answer earlier this month from the defence minister Penny Mordaunt to the SNP MP for Midlothian, Owen Thompson. “This beggars belief,” he told the Sunday Herald.

“If the UK government really thinks it is better for people not to know nuclear material is being driven on motorways and through city centres to feed their nuclear obsession, it is simply untenable.”

Astute submarines plagued by 69 safety incidents over four years

from Sunday Herald, 21 February 2016

The Royal Navy’s new nuclear-powered submarines have been plagued by 69 safety incidents and “near misses” over the last four years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has disclosed.

The Astute class of submarines based at Faslane on the Clyde has seen reported reactor incidents at sea or on shore almost double from 12 in 2014 to 21 in 2015. Though the MoD insists that the incidents are all minor, critics warn that they undermine the boats’ reliability and safety.

The first submarine of the class, HMS Astute, has already been out on operations, and the second, HMS Ambush, was launched in 2011. The third, HMS Artful, was formally handed over the Royal Navy in December 2015.

The four remaining Astute submarines are either still being built by the defence firm BAE Systems at its Barrow shipyard, or are due to be built there. The construction programme has been subject to a series of delays and cost overruns.

The MoD revealed the number of safety events recorded with Astute submarine reactors between January 2012 and January 2016 in response to a request under freedom of information law. There were an average of more than 17 a year, or one every three weeks (see table below).

Police accused of harassing nuclear bomb convoy protestors

from The National, 12 January 2016

Scotland's police force has been accused of harassing peace campaigners who followed a nuclear bomb convoy by road around Glasgow and Stirling on Saturday afternoon.

An SNP MSP is to complain to the chief constable of Police Scotland after activists from the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND) were pulled over near Stirling, and their car was subjected to a detailed roadworthiness check. Students filming the convoy from a roundabout were also questioned by police.

Heavily guarded 20-vehicle convoys regularly transport nuclear weapons in need of maintenance between the Burghfield bomb factory in Berkshire and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport on Loch Long. The convoys are often tracked by anti-nuclear campaigners, but they say this is the first time they have been hassled by police in recent years.

The SNP MSP Bill Kidd, co-convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s cross party group on nuclear disarmament, accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) police who guard the convoy of tipping off Police Scotland.

“It seems to be a waste of police time to be stopping and questioning law-abiding peace campaigners, who are simply performing a legitimate public service by keeping a watchful eye on the transport of nuclear missiles along our roads,” he said.

“It appears that the MoD has, without good reason, requested that police officers detain peaceful nuclear disarmers by means of carrying out spurious car searches. I will be writing to the chief constable asking that this unwarranted practice should stop henceforth.”

Concerns over safety at Rosyth after emergency exercise failures

from Sunday Herald, 10 January 2016

The safety regime at the Rosyth naval dockyard in Fife has been called into question after an emergency exercise failed to demonstrate adequate arrangements for rescuing casualties from an accident.

The UK government’s nuclear safety watchdog has ordered Babcock, the multinational company that runs the dockyard for the Royal Navy, to rerun the exercise, codenamed Nightstar, in March because of mistakes made last September.

An inspection by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) concluded that there were flaws in the way that staff looked after injured people during the exercise. There were also communication and command problems in dealing with the imagined accident.

The revelation has prompted “unease” about safety at the naval base, according to the local MP. Anti-nuclear campaigners have highlighted the serious risks of accidents, and demanded higher standards.

The problems with the Nightstar exercise on 30 September 2015 were disclosed in the ONR’s latest three-monthly report on Rosyth, posted online. Though inspectors thought that some of the exercise procedures were adequate, others were not.

Trident: the decision that’s already been made

from Sunday Herald, 27 December 2015

Early in 2016, MPs at Westminster are due to take a momentous decision: whether or not to renew the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system. The trouble is, judging from what we’ve learnt in 2015, the decision has already effectively been made – and it will bring a host of problems in its wake.

The House of Commons is expecting to vote in the next few months on what the Ministry of Defence (MoD) calls “Main Gate”. This is the major decision on whether or not to authorise multi-billion expenditure on replacing the four ageing Vanguard submarines that carry Trident nuclear missiles in and out of the Faslane naval base on the Clyde.

But it has because increasingly clear that, following an earlier “Initial Gate” decision in 2011, major sums of money have already been committed. In February 2015, the Sunday Herald reported that £4.2 billion was going to be spent on designing new submarines, reactors and missile compartments before next year’s parliamentary decision.

The figure came from the UK government’s National Audit Office. The MoD was roundly attacked by the Scottish National Party and the Greens for pre-empting the decision to renew Trident.

“It is utterly unacceptable that over £4 billion will be blown on replacing Trident nuclear weapons before parliament actually decides on whether or not to even give it the go ahead,” said the SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, at the time.

Scottish shellfish are contaminated by radioactive waste from Sellafield

from Sunday Herald, 20 December 2015

Radioactive waste from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria is contaminating shellfish hundreds of kilometres away on the west coast of Scotland, according to a new scientific study.

Scottish researchers discovered traces of radioactive carbon discharged from Sellafield in the shells of mussels, cockles and winkles as far north as Port Appin in Argyll, 256 kilometres from the notorious nuclear plant.

The findings are a “wake-up call” for anyone who thinks pollution from Sellafield is yesterday’s problem, say campaigners. Sellafield, however, stresses that the contamination is well below safety limits.

The study was carried out by a team of scientists from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre in East Kilbride and the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban. It has been published online in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.

The scientists found raised levels of radioactive carbon-14 in shellfish sampled at Port Appin, at Maidens in South Ayrshire and at Garlieston and Kippford on the Solway coast of Dumfries and Galloway. Mussels were most contaminated “due to the surface environment they inhabit and their feeding behaviour,” they said.

Trident spending leaves UK without adequate defences, says SNP

for Sunday Herald, 22 November 2015

The UK government failed to adequately protect Scotland from a Russia spy ship capable of monitoring and cutting vital underwater internet cables, an SNP MP has claimed.

The SNP blames plans to spend £167 billion on replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system for depriving conventional defences of the money they need to ensure that the UK is kept safe.

The defence minister, Penny Mordaunt, has revealed that a naval fleet meant to escort Russian ships through UK waters was not deployed when the Russian research vessel, Yantar, sailed up the east coast towards Norway on 24-26 October.

Instead Yantar was tracked by a single offshore patrol vessel, HMS Severn, because ”it made the most operational sense”. Mordaunt, however, kept further details secret in order not to “prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the armed forces.”

According to US naval officials, the Yantar has two self-propelled submersible vehicles capable of observing and cutting cables miles under the sea. As well as being seen around the UK, the boat was tracked last month by US forces as it moved down the east coast of America on a visit to Cuba.

Legal challenge on Israel’s nuclear policy

from Sunday Herald, 5 July 2015

Disarmament campaigners have launched a legal challenge to Israel’s secretive nuclear agency, demanding that it be given democratic authorisation.

The Israeli Disarmament Movement has written to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu requesting that he legislate for the existence of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Set up behind the scenes in 1952 to manage Israel’s nuclear activities, the commission has never been affirmed in law, campaigners say.

The commission runs two research reactors in Soreq and in the Negev desert, and says it helps develop nuclear energy for civil purposes. But it is widely suspected of also being involved in nuclear weapons development.

Israel maintains a deliberate policy of “nuclear ambiguity” and has never confirmed that it has nuclear weapons. But US experts have estimated it could have as many as 80 nuclear warheads.

Trident whistleblower backed by former naval commander

from Sunday Herald, 28 June 2015

A former Royal Navy commander has backed the Trident whistleblower, William McNeilly, and accused the navy of being “out of its depth” on nuclear weapons.

Rob Green, who flew nuclear-armed planes and helicopters for the navy in the 1960s and 1970s, praised McNeilly for being “courageous” and “patriotic” in helping to expose a “dangerous situation” which will get worse if Trident is replaced.

Green is famous for being the nephew of the anti-nuclear campaigner, Hilda Murrell, who was murdered Shrewsbury in 1984. He is now a co-director of the Disarmament and Security Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, and campaigns against nuclear weapons.

He served in the Royal Navy from 1962-82, flying Buccaneer nuclear strike aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth bombs. On promotion to commander in 1978, he worked in the Ministry of Defence and was an intelligence officer during the Falklands War in 1982.

In an article for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Green argues that the UK government’s Trident programme has been “discredited” by McNeilly’s safety and security allegations. Though McNeilly’s claims have been dismissed by the navy, Green points to evidence assembled by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND) substantiating them.

MoD brainwashing the public on nuclear safety, says Trident whistleblower

from Sunday Herald, 21 June 2015 

The Trident whistleblower, William McNeilly, has accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of “brainwashing” the public into believing that nuclear weapons are safe.

In a new public message, he says that people are being deceived about the security of Trident nuclear warheads carried by submarines based at Faslane and Coulport on the Clyde. A terrorist attack is highly likely, he claims.

McNeilly disclosed last week that he had been dishonourably discharged by the Royal Navy for publishing a dossier alleging that Trident was “a disaster waiting to happen” and going absent without leave. He is promising to say more in July.

The Sunday Herald revealed his allegations on 17 May, while he was on the run. The following day he handed himself in to police at Edinburgh airport, saying he had achieved what he wanted.

His dossier, which detailed 30 safety and security flaws on Trident submarines, was raised in the House of Commons by the former SNP leader, Alex Salmond MP. But it was dismissed by the MoD as “factually incorrect or the result of misunderstanding or partial understanding".

Navy under fire for ‘dishonourably’ sacking Trident whistleblower

from The National, 18 June 2016

The Royal Navy was yesterday accused of “acting dishonourably” by sacking William McNeilly, the Trident whistleblower who alleged that nuclear submarines were plagued by safety and security flaws.

McNeilly has posted a new report online revealing that he has been given a “dishonourable discharge” by the navy. He lost his job in order to protect the navy’s public image, he claims.

He attacks “military deceivers” and “spin doctors” for playing down his safety allegations. “You're being lied to about how safe and secure the nuclear weapons on your homeland are,” he tells the public.

McNeilly went absent without leave after a three-month patrol on the Trident submarine, HMS Victorious, earlier this year. The Sunday Herald revealed on 17 May that he had written an 18-page dossier describing Trident as “a disaster waiting to happen”.

He detailed 30 safety and security lapses, including failures testing whether missiles could be safely launched, burning toilet rolls starting a fire in a missile compartment, and security passes and bags going unchecked. Extracts from a top-secret safety manual he leaked disclosed that a design flaw in Trident missiles could result in fires, explosions and widespread radioactive contamination.

The navy labelled his allegations as “subjective and unsubstantiated” and launched an investigation into them. It concluded by dismissing his claims as “factually incorrect or the result of misunderstanding or partial understanding".

I was sacked to save the navy’s image, says Trident whistleblower

from The Guardian, 17 June 2016

The Trident safety whistlerblower, William McNeilly, says he has been dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy to protect its public image.

In a new 9-page report posted online, the former nuclear submariner attacks “military deceivers” and naval “spin doctors” for downplaying his allegations about multiple safety and security lapses. “It is shocking that some people in a military force can be more concerned about public image than public safety,” he says. 

McNeilly has not been heard from since he handed himself in to the police at Edinburgh airport on 18 May, the day after his story broke. While absent without leave, he had posted a dossier online alleging 30 flaws on the submarines that carry Britain’s nuclear warheads and warning that Trident was “a disaster waiting to happen”.

The navy described his dossier as “subjective and unsubstantiated” and launched an inquiry that concluded by dismissing his allegations as “factually incorrect or the result of mis- or partial understanding". But now he has hit back, fiercely defending the accuracy of what he said.

Trident missile flaw could trigger radioactive disaster, says leaked MoD report

from Sunday Herald, 24 May 2015

An inherent flaw in Trident missiles could lead to fires, explosions and widespread radioactive contamination, according to a top-secret safety manual leaked by the naval whistleblower, William McNeilly.

The Royal Navy’s official instructions on how to take care of nuclear weapons reveal that the “chief potential hazard” from a live missile is the “accidental ignition” of solid rocket fuel. This could cause the warheads’ conventional high explosives to detonate and scatter plutonium and other toxic materials “over a wide area”, it says.

The Trident D5 missile, used by both the UK and the US, is designed with nuclear warheads closely wrapped around the third stage rocket motor. This has been highlighted as a design flaw by US experts in the past, but has not previously been acknowledged by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). 

The results of a rocket fuel fire at sea or on land could be “catastrophic” for submariners and the public, critics warned last night. The MoD, however, said it had to train for every scenario “no matter how extreme and unlikely”. 

McNeilly, as well as alleging 30 Trident security and safety concerns in an 18-page dossier revealed by the Sunday Herald last weekend, says he filmed the weapons safety manual on his smart phone. Codenamed CB8890, it is a book kept in a safe in submarine missile control centre, he says.

Extracts quoted by McNeilly disclose that the warheads “clustered around the third stage rocket motor are at risk from a rocket motor propellant fire”. Exposed to heat, the warheads’ conventional high explosives “could cook to (non-nuclear) detonation, releasing radioactive materials and aerosols over a wide area,” the manual says.

If warhead containment is breached, “several radioactive and/or toxic materials may be exposed to the atmosphere,” it says. “These include plutonium, uranium, lithium compounds, tritium gas and beryllium. If mixed with water, fumes or toxic gases will be generated.”

MoD under pressure on Trident whistleblower’s fate

from Sunday Herald, 24 May 2015

McNeilly snapped in Portsmouth

While the Trident whistleblower, William McNeilly, was being mysteriously moved around Britain last week, a massive nuclear bomb convoy trundled along some of Scotland’s busiest roads. 

Although the Ministry of Defence (MoD) would rather have kept the movements of both the man and the weapons secret, they were defeated by social media. A fellow sailor posted a photograph of McNeilly in the canteen of Nelson barracks in Portsmouth, while members of the public tweeted when they saw the convoy of more than 20 vehicles driving by Stirling and Edinburgh.

The MoD is coming under mounting pressure to explain the fate of McNeilly, the naval nuclear weapons technician who alleged 30 safety and security flaws on Trident submarines. A defence minister is expected to make a statement to the House of Commons in London on Thursday.

That same evening the SNP’s former First Minister, Alex Salmond MP, has secured a debate on McNeilly’s allegations in the House of Commons, which will oblige ministers to answer further questions. MoD attempts to “brush it all under the carpet” were “profoundly unsatisfactory”, Salmond declared.

The Sunday Herald broke the McNeilly story while he was on the run abroad last weekend. On Monday evening he surrendered himself to the naval police at Edinburgh airport, but the MoD has refused to say where he has since been held, or how he might be punished.

I'll be handing myself in to the police today, says Trident whistleblower

18 May 2016

The nuclear weapons technician on the run since he blew the whistle on 30 alleged safety and security flaws on Trident submarines has said that he is going to give himself up to police today.

In a new public post on Facebook just after 1pm, William McNeilly (25) said that had achieved what he wanted. "I set out to gather as much information as possible, as fast as possible, inform you and the government before getting caught, then hand myself into the police," he said.

"I will be handing myself into the police today." Trident was "a broken system", he claimed. "If you continue to defend it sooner or later more truth will come out or a catastrophe will happen."

The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has this afternoon launched a petition to pardon McNeilly. "He should be commended for exposing the poor safety standards on nuclear submarines and not persecuted," it says.

McNeilly accused the Royal Navy of playing down his 18-page dossier alleging fire risks, leaks, a flood and security breaches on the submarines that carry Britain's nuclear weapons. The navy has said his report contains "subjective and unsubstantiated personal views, made by a very junior sailor, with which the naval service completely disagrees."

He said: "Responding by downplaying a report because there’s lack of seniority, acting like your security system is impenetrable and your aged system is still in excellent condition for sailing, is not an adequate response. Anyone who can use simple logic will not believe that."

Trident whistleblower says he will give himself up

from The National, 18 May 2015

The nuclear weapons engineer on the run after he blew the whistle on 30 alleged safety and security flaws plaguing Trident submarines has told his family he’s planning to give himself up.

Royal Navy submariner, William McNeilly (25), assured his brother on Facebook yesterday that he was “relatively safe now” though he couldn’t say where he was. “I will return to the UK and hand myself in soon,” he said.

“I may be alone physically, but I'm backed by a growing army. Change is coming. Don't worry about me,” he added. “This is about doing what I swore to do: protect the people and the land against threats both foreign and domestic.”

The Royal Navy has launched an investigation into McNeilly’s allegations, and says it “is working closely with civilian police to locate him”. Anti-nuclear campaigners yesterday praised his bravery, and urged the Navy not to hound him.

McNeilly, from Newtownabbey in Belfast, joined the Navy in July 2013 and served on patrol with the Trident submarine, HMS Victorious, from January to April this year. He went absent without leave last week, after writing a dramatic and damning account of the multiple problems he says he saw or heard about.

Trident is a disaster waiting to happen, says nuclear whistleblower

from Sunday Herald, 17 May 2015

Trident submarines are plagued by serious security lapses, beset by multiple safety blunders and “a disaster waiting to happen”, according to a nuclear weapons engineer turned whistleblower now being hunted by the police.

William McNeilly, who says he was on patrol with HMS Victorious from January to April this year, alleges that the Trident missiles it carries are vulnerable to a terrorist attack that “would kill our people and destroy our land.” Infiltrators have “the perfect opportunity to send nuclear warheads crashing down on the UK”, he claims.

He has written a detailed 18-page report called ‘The Nuclear Secrets’ claiming to lift the lid on the alarming state of the UK’s ageing and short-staffed nuclear deterrent. He went absent without leave from the Royal Navy last week, is on the run and expects to be arrested.

“This is bigger than me, it’s bigger than all of us,” he says. “We are so close to a nuclear disaster it is shocking, and yet everybody is accepting the risk to the public. If we don’t act now lives could be lost for generations.”

The risk was “extremely high”, he told the Sunday Herald. “My information comes from good sources and I have no reason to lie. If change isn’t made, a nuclear catastrophe almost certainly will happen.”

McNeilly’s report alleges 30 safety and security flaws on Trident submarines, based at Faslane on the Clyde. They include failures testing whether missiles could be safely launched, burning toilet rolls starting a fire in a missile compartment, and security passes and bags going unchecked.

He also reports alarms being muted because they went off so often, missile safety procedures being ignored and top secret information left unguarded. “It's just a matter of time before we're infiltrated by a psychopath or a terrorist,” he says. “There were some people that I served with on that patrol, who showed clear psychopathic tendencies.”