THREE Green MEPs were arrested in Belgium today for breaking into a military base to protest against nuclear weapons.

Britain’s Molly Scott Cato, France’s Michele Rivasi and Luxembourg’s Tilly Metz scaled a 12-foot fence to enter the Kleine Brogel base and block a runway, unfurling a banner that read: “Europe free of nuclear weapons.”

The protest focused on US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty that removed most nuclear missiles from Europe.

Ms Scott Cato said they “intended to challenge EU countries to remove US nuclear weapons from European soil.

“Each B61 bomb is 23 times more powerful than the bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

“We demand that Europe’s nuclear nations immediately sign up to the landmark global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and begin the process of decommissioning their nuclear arsenals.

“Britain and France have ignored their obligations under the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for far too long.”

The action was welcomed by Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. General secretary Kate Hudson said: “US nuclear weapons have no place in Europe — this isn’t a battleground for a nuclear war between world powers.

“We are in desperate need of a new era of diplomacy. The British government could lead the way by supporting efforts to rescue the INF treaty and fully engaging with the UN’s treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.
 
“The alternative is to sit back while the US president tears up all restraints on nuclear weapons and rapidly moves the world closer to nuclear war.”