PROTESTERS will set up a two-week peace camp outside RAF Lakenheath tomorrow after it emerged that all United States forces in Britain are exempt from meeting nuclear safety regulations.

And CND said that activists will block the Suffolk base on April 26, the last day of their vigil.

Declassified documents uncovered by CND show that former defence secretary Ben Wallace signed the “sensitive” waiver exempting US troops from telling local authorities they are storing nuclear weapons and exempt from sticking to regulations applied to radiation risks, leaving local authorities unable to draft disaster emergency plans.

It is known that RAF Lakenheath is being prepared to host new US nuclear weapons, but the March 2021 waiver exempts all US bases in Britain.

CND general secretary Sophie Bolt said: “Far from keeping people safe, all these nuclear weapons make Britain a target. Yet the government is more concerned about its special relationship with the US than people’s safety.

“The peace camp comes just as we learn that Britain’s cover-up of a US nuclear weapons deployment has been in the works for at least four years, alongside proof that people living close to any US base in this country, not just in East Anglia, are at great risk.”

Lakenheath Alliance for Peace co-founder Angie Zelter said: “It is horrifying and shameful that USAF Lakenheath, on British soil and with the connivance of the UK government, is involved in war crimes and genocide.

“Pilots from Israel and Saudi Arabia are trained at Lakenheath and US planes and bombs go out to take part in the bombings in Gaza and Yemen.

“We are here to say this is not in our name and to warn service personnel in the base that they should never obey illegal orders and should refuse to take part in the never-ending wars that are destroying people and planet.”

Greenham Common campaigner Ginnie Herbert said: “The cruise missiles left Greenham Common, international law changed and the common was handed back to the people.

“Forty years later and here we are protesting again as secret decisions are made and US nuclear weapons return to Lakenheath.”

The new camp will include a programme of events and actions taking place at the base and in nearby towns and villages.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “It remains a long-standing UK and Nato policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”