Month of action on military spending
Raise awareness through your local paper
As the UK government makes the biggest increases to military spending in 70 years, we must build opposition from the grass roots, calling for a change of priorities.
Local papers are read by almost 1 in 5 of the UK population – more than many of the national newspapers. MPs will read them too, to know what their constituents care about, so they are a great place to raise awareness.
Local and regional papers are more trusted than almost all national print papers, and the letter to the editor page is one of the most read sections of a local paper. Use our template message below to send a letter to yours.
- Edit the message if you can, to make the message relevant to your local area, highlighting, for example, how austerity budget cuts or COVID-19 have affected your local community, and where you think the UK’s money should be spent instead. Even better if you can link to a story recently published in the paper.
- However do keep it short, or it will be cut down – below a maximum of 300 words.
- Find who to send it to on the letters page of your local paper, online or in print.
- If you would prefer your name not to be published, let them know – but do supply your name and address.
- Let us know if you send a letter and if they publish it by emailing [email protected], so we can monitor our impact across the UK – and share it if they publish it on your social media so we can reach even more people.
Template message:
Dear
Over the next 4 years, the UK will spend 8 times more on the military than it will on tackling the climate crisis. With just 7.1% of last year’s global military spending, we could have vaccinated everyone on earth against COVID-19. We’ve got our priorities all wrong.
In 2020, global military spending rose to nearly $2 trillion, and the UK is the 5th highest spender in the world. At a time when our community has been wracked by COVID-19, thousands have lost their homes, jobs and businesses, the government has been spending money expanding into new areas of warfare such as killer robots, and increasing the UK’s nuclear warheads, which breaks international treaties and fuels a nuclear arms race.
Military spending makes us less safe, and wastes vital resources on outdated notions of military strength. Spending like this makes a mockery of Boris Johnson’s ambition to be a ‘force for good’ in the world.
It’s time we chose healthcare over warfare, to truly defend people and planet.
Yours sincerely,
