Britain deepens nuclear ties with France and Australia
By George Allison, September 19, 2026, https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-deepens-nuclear-ties-with-france-and-australia/
Britain is deepening its nuclear relationships with the United States, France and Australia, with the Northwood Declaration recognising that there is no extreme threat to Europe which would not prompt a response by both Britain and France, according to the annual update to Parliament published this week.
The declaration, agreed in July 2025, reaffirmed and strengthened what the update describes as longstanding nuclear cooperation between the two countries. On the AUKUS partnership, the update records an important development in February this year when HMS Anson docked at HMAS Stirling near Perth.
The United States is described as Britain’s closest defence ally, with the relationship underpinned by long-standing cooperation on all nuclear matters including policy, operations and technology.
The practical expression of that relationship runs through the missile system, since Trident and its supporting systems fitted to the Vanguard class are manufactured in the United States, with Britain having bought title to a number of missiles drawn from a shared pool of assets under the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement as amended for Trident in 1982. The system is operated independently by both the Royal Navy and the United States Navy.
The warhead fitted to those missiles is sovereign to Britain, with the Mk4A design maintained by AWE at Aldermaston, which also leads development of the replacement warhead, Astraea. Wes Streeting writes that the increase in investment across the enterprise “sends a clear signal of our commitment to global security, and to our Allies”, with the deterrent remaining declared to the defence of NATO.
The update states that nuclear deterrence is the cornerstone of NATO security and that the independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom contribute significantly to the overall security of the alliance, a declaration maintained since 1962.
UK Labour won’t order new nuclear submarines for Royal Navy until 2028, Wes Streeting admits
Labour won’t order new nuclear submarines for Royal Navy until 2028, Wes
Streeting admits. Labour will not order any new nuclear-powered submarines
until 2028 as concerns grow over delays to Britain’s naval expansion plans.
Sir Keir Starmer last year said Labour would decide how many submarines to
commission by the time its Defence Investment Plan was published. The
report was released on June 30. But the Government has now postponed its
commitment to buying submarines until 2028.
Daily Mail 13th Sept 2026,
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16127723/labour-delays-nuclear-submarine-decision-2028.html
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to X on Thursday, more than two years after his release from prison as the AI crisis dominates the headlines
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, September 17, 2026, https://consortiumnews.com/2026/09/17/assange-returns-to-x-in-midst-of-ai-crisis/
Julian Assange returned to X on Thursday 25 months after being released from London’s Belmarsh Prison and eight and a half years since he last posted on the social media site.
“I’m back,” Assange posted at 9:02 a.m. EDT.
His return comes amidst an expanding crisis of Artificial Intelligence, which captains of the AI industry have warned in recent days is slipping out of control and endangering human society.
Assange has remained away from the public since his freedom in June 2024 recovering from his five-year prison ordeal, which was preceded by seven years of confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
He made his first post-release public appearance in Strasbourg, France on Oct. 1, 2024 at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to discuss his case and its implications for press freedom.
Assange next appeared at the head of a march of an estimated 300,000 people over the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Aug. 3, 2025 to protest Israel’s genocide in Gaza. At the end of July he attended a concert in Sydney in support of pianist Jayson Gillham after the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra cancelled his 2024 concert over comments he made about journalists killed in Gaza.
Assange’s technical expertise could put him in position to weigh in on the AI crisis. It is a non-partisan issue that lacks the controversy of comments on U.S. foreign policy.
OpenAI AI agents escaped testing environments this year and coordinated cyberattacks on other AI systems, revealing that humans were losing control. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing AI development so security measures can catch up, warning swarms could seize the internet within a year. OpenAI’s Sam Altman agreed development “should be slower,” and Elon Musk, who runs Grok AI, posted “Dario is right.”
Assange had not posted on Twitter, later X, since March 2018 when the Ecuador government, which hosted him in its London embassy, cut his internet access after he tweeted about Catalonia’s independence referendum.
After his June 2024 plea deal and release, Assange stayed off social media and his wife, Stella Assange, said publicly he wasn’t on any platforms and that accounts claiming to be his were fake.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
1 This month
17 October, Free Public Talk on Nuclear Issues in South Australia
David Noonan will speak on public interest concerns over the new Roxby Downs Indenture Act 2026 on BHP copper-uranium mining and ore processing in SA, and on how AUKUS may face SA with a High-Level nuclear waste agenda.
Dr Jim Green will discuss international developments in the field of nuclear power including ‘small modular reactors’ and Generation 4 ‘advanced’ nuclear reactor concepts.
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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