For Peace!

Trident Ploughshares was an anti-nuclear direct action group launched in the late 1990s with the aim of disarming Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system. The group was rooted in the idea of people's disarmament and involved acts of civil disobedience and direct action, such as trespassing on military bases, damaging equipment, and disrupting operations at sites like Faslane Naval Base and AWE Aldermaston. One of their most well-known actions was that of the Trident Three in June 1999. The three women rowed across in a rubber dinghy to a floating sonar testing station in Loch Goil where they caused significant damage to the facility, including tipping 20 computers and monitors into the loch, smashing electrical equipment with hammers, cutting an antenna, and jamming machinery with glue, sand, and syrup. Charged with causing £80,000 worth of damage, in a groundbreaking case at Greenock Sheriff Court, the women were acquitted. The court accepted their defence that their actions were legally justified to prevent the greater harm posed by the use of weapons of mass destruction, which they contended violated international law, including the Geneva Conventions. The Trident Three case became a key moment in the anti-nuclear and disarmament movement.