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Arms expenditure should be cut by two-thirds and the nuclear missile programme scrapped alongside every other aspect of nuclear power. The Socialist Labour Party is committed to turning "swords into ploughshares". We want to free the billions of pounds currently spent on weapons of death and destruction into rebuilding our National Health Service, education system, housing and guaranteed pensions in line with the agreement concluded in 1978. Our Party condemns the bombing of Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and the unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq. To date, over 150,000 men, women and children have died as a result of the US/UK invasion. The Socialist Labour Party would bring all the troops home from Iraq now. We are an internationalist party which believes that countries have a sovereign right to determine their own destiny. They should not be dictated to by countries which are militarily stronger and who seek to impose their ideology on weaker nations, particularly when they seek to gain control over oil reserves such as those reserves in Iraq. The bombing of Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and the unlawful invasion of Iraq contrasts sharply with the abject failure of the United Nations, the United States and Great Britain to deal with Israel, who continue to occupy Palestinian land and murder Palestinian men, women and children. Israel should be outlawed as a pariah and the United States and Britain should demand Israel's immediate withdrawal from all Palestinian occupied territories. Our Party calls for an end to the United States' sanctions against Cuba - which has been subjected to a blockade for over 40 years. We would cut defence expenditure by two-thirds, thereby saving £20 billion per year, money which should and could be spent on our National Health Service, where it could be used to improve the quality of life rather than for weapons of destruction designed to destroy life. The leaders of the United States Government and British Government who unlawfully invaded Iraq stand guilty as war criminals. They should be forced to answer for their actions which have led to death and injury on a massive scale. The real target of the invasion of Iraq was to capture control of its massive oil reserves. The assertion that the world is now a safer place is in direct contrast to the daily loss of life throughout the Middle East and the measures which are being introduced in countries throughout the world, measures brought about by the invasion of Iraq itself. We want to stop money being spent on the weaponry of death and mass destruction and use it instead to help restore a natural balance in the environment of which humans are only one element. We would cut defence expenditure by two-thirds, thereby saving £20 billion per year - money which could and should be spent on the NHS and care of the elderly thus saving and improving the quality of life, rather than building and using weapons designed to destroy life
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