New report sets out need to break with failed UK government security policies.
The ‘Alternative Defence Review’ published today by a working group chaired by Kate Hudson (CND Vice-President) with Alex Gordon (former RMT President) and Sam Mason (CND Trade Union Advisory Group), calls for a radical break with successive UK governments’ failed security and defence policies, which distort Britain’s national priorities, fuel global instability, undermine international law, harm the environment and divert investment from public services and social infrastructure towards subsidies for the global arms industry.
As the UK government publishes a Strategic Defence Review (2 June 2025) based on increasing military spending to 2.5% of GDP from 2027, our Alternative Defence Review sets out the case for a radical shift toward a significantly demilitarised defence strategy rooted in human security and common security—prioritising diplomacy, global cooperation, conflict prevention, and investment in health, education, climate resilience, social care, and the creation of well-paid, secure, unionised and socially useful jobs.
Professor Karen Bell, who edited the Alternative Defence Review said:
“This report offers a credible, democratic alternative to militarism: a sustainable economy grounded in social justice, global solidarity, and the urgent need to build peace—not war—for the 21st century.”
- Alternative Defence Review (May 2025) was proposed by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in response to the RMT union’s decision to ‘…campaign with other trade unions and peace organisations to convene a labour and peace movement summit to work out the basis of a new foreign policy with the promotion of peace and social justice at its heart’.
- Contributors to the Alternative Defence Review are: Karen Bell, University of Glasgow; Michael Burke, economist; David Cullen, BASIC; John Foster, University of Paisley/UWS; Alex Gordon, RMT; Ann Henderson, former STUC; Kate Hudson, CND; Hugh Kirkbride, Unite the union (personal capacity); Sam Mason, CND Trade Union Advisory Group; Marjorie Mayo, Goldsmiths, University of London; Kevan Nelson, UNISON (personal capacity); Richard Norton-Taylor, Declassified UK; Paul Rogers, University of Bradford; Dave Webb, Leeds Beckett University.
