RAF Lakenheath may be future nuclear war target, CND says

A team from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) gathered outside RAF Lakenheath, which is between the village and Mildenhall, with the aim of searching the base for nuclear weapons on Saturday (September 23).

They believe the United States Air Force is using the base, which is the largest US-operated base in England, to deploy nuclear weapons for the first time in 15 years.

The first US nuclear bombs arrived on British soil in September 1954, and several sources confirmed the withdrawal of the weapons in 2008.

The CND staged a protest outside the RAF base (Image: CND)

After the CND wrote to the base commander about a potential inspection, the campaign group was refused access at the last minute by British Royal Air Force authorities, and so the group staged a protest outside the base.

The campaign group says it received a letter from the RAF that said that it was “longstanding policy” to neither “confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons”, which “reduces the risk of deliberate nuclear use by those seeking a first strike advantage”.

The CND say they were denied access for a weapons inspection (Image: CND)

CND Chair Tom Unterrainer said: “By refusing access, the UK authorities are happily going along with US foreign policy, which flies in the face of the will of the British people. The majority of the public don’t want US nuclear weapons here, so where is the vote in parliament?

“We know the base is being readied for the B61-12. We know they are doubling the amount of F-35 jets to be stationed there. So, in the event of a nuclear war between Russia and the US, you don’t need to be Carl von Clausewitz to know that Lakenheath is going to be on the target list.”

The protest was held on the CND national day of action (Image: CND)

A small group from the Bury St Edmunds Quakers also held a silent witness on Angel Hill in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday.

A statement from the meeting house said: “Quakers believe that no one has the right to use these weapons in their defence or to ask another person to use them on their behalf and that every human person is ‘unique, precious, a child of God’.

Bury St Edmunds Quakers held a silent witness on Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds (Image: Graham Gosling of Bury St Edmunds Quakers)

“We therefore know ourselves called to oppose the presence of these terrible weapons of mass destruction on British soil.”

RAF Lakenheath and the U.S. Department of Defense were contacted for comment, but none was received.