Exclusive – Weapons of Mass Destruction Found at Last!

Around 400 people have taken part in the Big Blockade, at Faslane - home to Britain's trident nuclear submarines. Scottish Socialist Party MSPs Rosie Kane and Frances Curran and Green MSPs Mark Ballard and Patrick Harvie were among dozens of people taken away, while SNP MSPs Sandra White and Nicola Sturgeon also took part. The MSPs are thought to be being held at Maryhill police station.

Protesters from all over Europe including Australia, America, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Spain and Ireland took part. Organiser David Mackenzie said: "We are again highlighting the hypocrisy of the UK Government over weapons of mass destruction. It launched a futile hunt for WMD, costing many thousands of lives in Iraq. Meanwhile, we ourselves have hugely costly and enormously destructive WMD."

The action raises the obvious question of whether these parliamentary groups can work together in an organised coalition, as has been discussed recently.

A Trident Ploughshares Press Release stated:

70 arrests as peace activists block British WMD site
70 people, including four members of the Scottish Parliament, have
been arrested during the blockade of Faslane naval base on the Clyde.

From 6.30 this morning there were long tailbacks of worker traffic
as the protesters besieged the gates of the base, sitting down in the
roadway and locking on to each other. Two climbers scaled lamp-posts and hung
across the main gate of the base a large banner reading "Nuclear Free
Scotland".

The base was disrupted for almost nine hours as gates cleared by
police were blocked again by activists.

The blockade has now been closed with a formal ceremony but further
actions against the base may be taken during the rest of the day.

Overnight two Scandinavian activists, Tiina Sarkinen, 23, a plant scientist from Finland, and Anna Goransson, 24, a student from Sweden, swam into the high security berths where the Trident submarines are berthed and got 200 metres inside the boom before being apprehended. Early this morning Petter Joelson (27), from Goteborg in Sweden, and Per Hilkrstrom (22), from
Nosrkoping in Sweden breached security at the Trident nuclear warhead store at Coulport on Loch Long, five miles from Faslane.

More from the Big Blockade site here, and Trident Ploughshares here.