Campaigners Rebut British Government Defence of Saudi Crown Prince Visit

Theresa May has invited the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to visit Britain on the 7th-9th March. Bin Salman is the second most senior member of the Saudi regime. He currently oversees the bombing of Yemen, which has caused what the UN has called "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world". The Saudi regime has supported repression in Bahrain, imposed a blockade on Qatar, and detained the Lebanese Prime Minister.

A parliamentary petition urging the government to cancel the visit has attracted over 11,500 signatures, which means it qualified for a debated in parliament. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office made a response claiming that that engagement with the Saudi dictatorship has made ‘both of our countries safer and more prosperous’ and asserting that human rights must be ‘practical, realistic and achievable’.  You can read the response and the reply from groups opposing the visit here. 

 Early Day Motion 865 on the proposed visit has been supported by a number of Labour MPs. Ask your local MP to do likewise. You can read the motion and list of supporters here. 

CND at 60

2018 is the 60th anniversary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Founded in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, CND has been a powerful collective voice against the dangers of nuclear weapons. Our founding meeting took place on the 17th February 1958 at the Central Hall, Westminster.

You can find all the information about the 60th Anniversary events and activities on the CND UK website.

London celebrates CND at 60

Bruce Kent (front row, right) was the guest speaker at London CND's March to Aldermaston - CND at 60 event

London CND celebrated the Campaign’s 60th anniversary on Saturday 17 February, with a film show hosted by Sands Film Club, Rotherhithe. Forty to fifty people attended the March to Aldermaston: CND at 60 event. Referring to the Lindsey Anderson documentary of the 1958 Easter march to the Aldermaston bomb-making factory, guest speaker Bruce Kent (front row, right) explained: ‘I was a humble London curate at the time. It wasn’t until later that I became convinced about the issue of nuclear weapons.’ Olivier Stockman who runs Sands Studios with colleague Christine Edzard, noted that the two short films he also showed – Genie in a bottle unleashed and Embrace! a world free of nuclear weapons – were chosen from the UN library of films which advocate a nuclear free world.

Lindsey Anderson’s short documentary of the three-day Ban the Bomb march of Easter 1958, narrated by Richard Burton, enjoys landmark status as a campaigning documentary. It was a milestone too for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which emerged onto the political stage as an organisation capable of uniting disparate political currents and concerned citizens from across the country.

The volunteers responsible for the film organised the Film and Television Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, brought together a range of skills across the film industry to make an impressive and professional piece of documentary footage. Lindsey Anderson was the dominant influence, who became the acknowledged leader of Free Cinema, a British documentary revival of the 1950s which prefigured the British New Wave movement. March to Aldermaston is included in the British Film Institute’s box set, Free Cinema, available from http://shop.bfi.org.uk/

You can watch a clip from March to Aldermaston here.