Upcoming Event
Trident Workshop
York
Date: 9-10 January 2016
Venue: TBC York
Host: ACUK
Open to: ACUK Members only
Cost: £20
The event is restricted to ACUK Members only, though those wishing to attend may contact the Council in order to process their membership application at the same time.
Please contact info@atlanticcounciluk.co.uk to book your place or for more information.

Following the hugely successful Trident Workshop last year, the Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom is pleased to announce that it will be hosting this year's event in York. The event is open to ACUK members only, and will focus on the strategic implications of not only Trident renewal, but also the building political opposition to the UK's nuclear deterrent. In November 2015, the Chancellor George Osborne announced his intention to remove responsibility for the renewal from the Ministry of Defence, arguing that HM Treasury would be better placed and more competent to handle the process. When taken in the context of recent comments by General Sir Nick Houghton about his opposition to Jeremy Corbyn's stance on Trident, it exposes the depth of division within Government on the issue.


With the nuclear deterrent and indeed defence in general no longer publicly perceived to be the preserve of politicians, officials and the military to decide upon, Trident renewal has become inextricably linked to wider issues. Scottish nationalism has at its heart a reconsideration of the merits of the deterrent on home soil. Austerity and the consequential reduction in real terms of the funding for our armed forces has likewise forced a reappraisal of the need for Trident renewal. The very fact that society is divided over a question that was once thought to be part of a discrete discource among defence professionals shows the extent to which NATO Allies need to be prepared to engage with the public and Civil Society spaces. Reasons, logics and assumptions must now be set out, or governments risk losing traction with the very publics they set out to serve altogether.