DECLASSIFIED government documents have revealed that US military bases across Britain are exempt from nuclear safety rules.

Disclosed through legal work by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and their lawyers at Leigh Day, visiting US forces are not bound by Britain’s emergency radiation laws, leaving bases like RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under no legal obligation to prepare for nuclear accidents.

There are at least 10,000 US personnel stationed at 13 RAF bases in Britain, one of which, RAF Lakenheath, is being prepared to host US nuclear warheads. 

The nationwide exemption certificate, signed in March 2021 by then-defence secretary Ben Wallace, shows that the government is putting so-called national security before people’s safety, the CND said.

It means that local councils are not informed of the presence of nuclear weapons at these bases and therefore are not required to have emergency response plans in place.

CND has called on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to revoke the exemption and announce in Parliament that no US nuclear weapons are welcomed in Britain.

The campaign group is supporting two weeks of protests by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace from Monday April 14, culminating in a blockade of the base on Saturday April 26.

CND general secretary Sophie Bolt said: “Nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons in the world. They put us all at risk every day.

“Yet the government is more concerned about its special relationship with the US than people’s safety.

“The government’s exemption order smacks of a cover-up for a new generation of deadly US nuclear bombs being deployed in Britain.”

Ms Bolt said that the government does not want people to know about the exemption “because a majority of the population don’t want US nuclear bombs here.”

“It’s shocking the lengths that successive British governments have gone to prevent transparency and oversight of nuclear weapons,” she said. 

“‘National security’ is the constant excuse given to avoid public scrutiny of the dangers the population faces all the time because of nuclear weapons.

“Far from keeping people safe, all these nuclear weapons make Britain a target.”

She called for the government to abandon its nuclear commitments and redirect resources into public services and green energy.

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