PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT (26 January 1998)

leave out from 'House' to end and add `notes that for 40 years the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has demanded the one-sided abandonment by Britain of nuclear weapons, nuclear bases and nuclear alliances, without success; realises that suc h a policy, if implemented, would have left Britain in a state of helpless neutrality at the height of the Cold War; recalls that CND totally rejected President Reagan's 1981 Zero Option offer which led to the successful Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, once unilateralism had been defeated; further notes that, under the provisions of the INF Treaty, hundreds of Soviet SS20 missiles threatening Western Europe were destroyed in return for the scrapping of NATO's cruise and Pershing II missiles which CND had fortunately failed to prevent from being deployed; deplores the statement by CND's then General Secretary, Bruce Kent, in 1983 that Britain's Communists were CND's "partners in the cause for peace in this world"; realises that the Labour Party's support for CND's anti-nuclear policies was a key factor in Labour's heavy defeats in the 1983 and 1987 general elections; further recalls the deletion of CND membership details from dozens of Labour candidates' official biographies during the 1992 General Election campaign, by Party Headquarters staff; and doubts if many unilateralist Labour and Liberal ho nourable Members will have the courage openly to support CND on its 40th anniversary.'.

Sponsored by:
Sir Julian Lewis (Conservative)