The Wages not War meeting held at The Mechanics Institute on Saturday 25 March welcomed speakers from Demilitarise Education, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, Rail and Maritime union, UNISON, High Peak Green New Deal, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Stop the War Coalition and the People’s Assembly.
Our speakers covered the links between the climate and cost of living crises and defence jobs, defence spending and arms manufacture.
The two panels of speakers included Ellie Kinney from the Conflict and Environment Observatory who spoke about military emissions that are not counted by the UK Government and Jinsella from Demilitarise Education speaking about the database they have developed which is uncovering and highlighting the links between the arms trade and universities and calling for divestment.
Alex Gordon from the RMT union spoke about the need for a Defence Diversification Agency and Pam Flynn, Chair of Greater Manchester and District CND encouraged everyone to think about the massive increase in military spending, from 2% to 3% of GDP.
Pam also spoke about the £205billion committed to the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system and how this money would be better spent investing in sustainable, long term, jobs in areas such as Barrow.
The audience was appreciative and joined in with dynamic discussions at the end of each session and many people signed up for further information from all of the groups represented on the day.