Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
The British state’s nuclear terrorism
In the second of two interviews on atomic conflict, Ian Sinclair speaks to peace activist MILAN RAI about the popular framing of Britain’s nuclear weapons being for ‘deterrence,’ and to explain his claim that Britain has carried out ‘nuclear terrorism’

THE editor of Peace News newspaper and author of the 1994 book Tactical Trident: The Rifkind Doctrine and the Third World, peace activist Milan Rai has recently written several articles about Britain’s nuclear arsenal.

Ian Sinclair: There is a consensus in Britain’s mainstream political culture — from the media to politicians to academia — that Britain’s nuclear weapons are primarily used for deterrence. What’s your take?

Milan Rai: For the general public in Britain, the idea of using nuclear weapons is so deeply horrifying, so taboo, that it is unthinkable. It isn’t unthinkable for the British military establishment.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
The main entrance of The Guardian Newspaper office on York Way, north London
Features / 21 July 2025
21 July 2025

At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR

IS
Music / 14 July 2025
14 July 2025

New releases from Allo Darlin’, Loyle Carner and Mike Polizze

IS
Album reviews / 30 June 2025
30 June 2025

New releases from Toby Hay, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars

ILLEGAL FROM THE START: British commandos in the south east region of Afghanistan, May 2002
Features / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion 
 

Similar stories
Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to soldiers at the RAF base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, during his three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus, December 10, 2024
Features / 3 July 2025
3 July 2025

From nuclear bomb storage in the 1950s to surveillance flights over Gaza today, the Cyprus base has enabled seven decades of machinations so heinous that Starmer once blurted out ‘we can’t tell the world’ what goes on there, writes NUVPREET KALRA

Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a media conference at the end of the Nato Summit at the Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025
Features / 27 June 2025
27 June 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES explains how the PM is channelling the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher with a ‘two-tier’ nuclear deterrent, whose Greenham Common predecessor was eventually fought off by a bunch of ‘punks and crazies’

Protesters taking part in the Stop Trident protest march as
Features / 15 March 2025
15 March 2025
As Macron and Merz propose French nuclear-armed jets be stationed in Poland and Germany, the dangerous implications for peace and the possibility of nuclear confrontation grow, warns SOPHIE BOLT
From left to right: Leslie Barson (Peace News Ltd director a
Features / 28 September 2024
28 September 2024
IAN SINCLAIR mourns the end of the longstanding activist newspaper that proudly stood ‘For Revolutionary Nonviolence’