The Prime Minister has been told he must produce a plan to end the scandal of Britain’s nuclear testing legacy.
Writing exclusively for Mirror Online, campaigners have urged Keir Starmer to force the government to “clean up its act” with the release of data and compensation to “the human labrats” affected by the fallout.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Australian minister Melissa Parke has joined forces with Alan Owen, founder of LABRATS which fights for justice for survivors in the UK, to make the call as the world marks the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
As the country is told to brace itself for cutbacks, the Ministry of Defence has seen a massive increase in costs of the Trident nuclear missile system and its renewal, while devoting no resources to helping those who created it.
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POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“If Starmer’s Britain is to really be a better place, his government should commit to cleaning up its act with the people and places still suffering from creating the nuclear weapons which are the source of so much of his power,” they said.
“Despite defence cutbacks, in the past year alone the cost of maintaining the nuclear arsenal has risen 17% to £6.5billion. Renewing Trident will cost in the region of £200bn. It is only right that resources also be found to support people in Australia and Kiribati, as well as UK veterans.”
They point out that although Britain’s biggest weapon, exploded on Christmas Island in 1958, was 237 times more powerful than the blast which flattened Hiroshima and killed 140,000 people, successive governments have claimed no-one was harmed by it.
Yet veterans and nuclear communities report the same pattern of cancers, blood disorders, miscarriages and birth defects. Multiple nations, including Britain, experimented on those involved. And as the Mirror revealed last year, their medical records have since gone missing in what has been described as a “criminal cover-up on an industrial scale”.
‘Keir Starmer should deliver justice for survivors of nuke tests’
It is more than 30 years since Britain carried out its last nuclear test – decades in which successive British governments have denied victims the support and compensation they need.
On the United Nations’ International Day Against Nuclear Tests, we call on the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer to produce a plan to help both veterans and indigenous communities who still have to deal with the effects of radioactive fallout every day.
Britain’s largest-ever tests was the 3-megaton Grapple Y, detonated on what is today the Pacific island state of Kiribati in 1958. It was 237 times more powerful than the weapon which killed 140,000 people at Hiroshima in 1945.
The US, France, the Soviet Union, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea have between them conducted more than 2,000 tests . Nuclear powers deliberately studied survivors, without their consent, to assess the effects of radiation on people, ships, and other equipment. Humans became labrats, used, studied, and abandoned to suffer the consequences for generations.
Some countries have paid limited compensation and given support to those affected, though it is frequently inadequate. Britain stands alone in refusing to acknowledge the ongoing harms.
The Sunak government, like others before it, denied any link between health problems and nuclear testing. But among the Western powers, Britain blocks access to information on the impact, refusing veterans files from their medical records and failing to respond to Kiribati’s request for access to data.
Starmer now has an opportunity to show his government will be different. Despite defence cutbacks, in the past year alone the cost of maintaining the nuclear arsenal has risen 17% to £6.5billion. Renewing Trident will cost in the region of £200bn. It is only right that resources also be found to support people in Australia and Kiribati, as well as UK veterans.
Last year Kiribati president Teneti Maamau called for compensation and access to scientific data. The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has demanded a public inquiry. Justice delayed is justice denied. Any concerns about the cost of compensation or public support for nuclear weapons should not prevent the new government from making things right.
Britain has refused to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first of its kind to acknowledge the harm caused by including pledges on victim assistance and environmental remediation. Kiribati, New Zealand and Fiji, which have people suffering from the consequences of British tests, all joined TPNW, and the Labour Party in Australia has committed to signing it.
If Starmer’s Britain is to really be a better place, his government should commit to cleaning up its act with the people and places still suffering from creating the nuclear weapons which are the source of so much of his power.
Alan Owen, founder of LABRATS International, and Melissa Parke, executive director of ICAN, winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, and Australia’s former Minister for International Development
“Nuclear powers deliberately studied survivors, without their consent, to assess the effects of radiation on people, ships, and other equipment. Humans became labrats, used, studied, and abandoned to suffer the consequences for generations… Britain stands alone in refusing to acknowledge the ongoing harms” say the campaigners.
They added that as other governments have signed an international treaty promising to repair the damage, and Starmer’s counterpart in Australia, new Labour premier Anthony Albanese, has said he will do the same.
At the same time, Veterans Minister Al Carns has been told to honour Labour’s promise to “do all we can” for nuclear veterans within a year. Councillor Tommy Judge of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities said: “These veterans are getting old. They cannot wait any longer for access to medical records, specialist medical treatment, and recompense… this is an injustice that has gone on for too long, and at at too great a cost.”
In Opposition, Starmer told veterans “your campaign is our campaign” and pledged his party’s support to uncover the truth about the Nuked Blood scandal. Yet his election manifesto made no mention of it, and since coming to power he has merely offered a short meeting between the new Veterans Minister and an MP, to which no survivors were invited.
There are fears that the new flock of ministers are yet to fully grasp the reigns of power and are at the mercy of the civil service, which veterans have long blamed for the ongoing injustice. Some Cabinet ministers are “keen to do more” on the issue, according to sources, but there are concerns that it will sap public support for Trident at a time when it is considered more vital than ever.