“The British public has a right to know about the risks posed by such a deployment – and the right to express their opposition to it. We know that 59% of the population do not want US nuclear weapons to be sited in Britain again.”
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) General Secretary Sophie Bolt has written to the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary on US nuclear bombs being housed in Britain and in sites across Europe. You can read the full text of the letter published below:
Dear Prime Minister,
I am writing to you, as a matter of urgency, for your response to a statement made by Jill Hruby from the US’s National Nuclear Security Administration on 16 January 2025. She states that “[t]he new B61-12 gravity bombs are fully forward deployed…”.
The bombs Hruby is referring to are new US nuclear weapons. From publicly available announcements and documents published in the United States, it is evident that plans have been in place to locate these bombs at NATO bases across western Europe. Since 2021, nuclear facilities at RAF Lakenheath have been upgraded, including the refurbishment of nuclear bomb shelters.
The announcement from Hruby suggests that these US nuclear bombs are now located across European NATO bases, possibly including here in Britain.
These bombs have three times the destructive power of the US atomic bomb, which killed over 200,000 people in Hiroshima in 1945.
It is totally unacceptable that the news of this ‘forward deployment’ has been discovered through posts on X and US department websites. As far as we are aware, there has been no announcement by the government to Parliament about this crucial information.
There has been no information presented to local communities about the new security risks that they face. US nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath will present a major threat, not only to communities near the base, but to Britain as a whole, by putting us all on the US/NATO nuclear front line.
The British public has a right to know about the risks posed by such a deployment – and the right to express their opposition to it. We know that 59% of the British population do not want US nuclear weapons to be sited in Britain again.
I urge you to make a public statement to clarify the situation at RAF Lakenheath.
Yours sincerely,
Sophie Bolt,
CND General Secretary
- Sophie Bolt is the General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). You can follow her on Twitter/X and CND on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
- This letter was originally published on the CND website on 23rd January 2025.
