Faith in the rule of law inspired politicians and senior clergy to risk arrest. The law gives them a language to work with and a programme to agree on. We are now in the process of digesting the lessons of recent court cases arising from citizen disarmament actions against the Trident nuclear weapons system. A great deal of progress has been made. Juries are often open to our arguments.
Judges are less so.
Their worries seem to be based less on the legal status of Trident itself than on the right of citizens to take direct action against it. We are therefore still left with legal barriers in spite of the considerable moral and political progress we have made. Several people are now thinking of supplementing direct action with other legal approaches. There have been several promising indicators within the last year. We are still waiting for the result of the judicial review of the Environment Agency's authorisation of radioactive discharges from the manufacture of nuclear warheads at Aldermaston and Burghfield.