EURO MP ARRESTED

She was arrested and charged shortly after 10am for breaching the peace when she was sitting in the road blocking the entrance to the Trident nuclear submarine base at Faslane, Scotland.

Dr Lucas, an MEP for the South East, was taking part in a day of action alongside some 60 MPs, MEPs and councilors '“ from a range of green and left-leading political parties '“ as part of Faslane 365, a one year continuous peaceful demonstration against Britain's arsenal of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Dr Lucas, who is a co-founder and Co-President of the European Parliament's cross-party peace initiatives group of MEPs and a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's decision-making National Council, said:

'Britain's Trident nuclear warheads are deadly weapons of mass destruction which cost billions and are completely irrelevant to global geo-politics today.

'Elected politicians from a wide range of parties joined hands today to blockade the Trident nuclear submarine base to show our collective opposition to this nuclear folly - and the Labour Government's unlawful plans to replace and upgrade it,' she added.

Dr Lucas has been arrested at Faslane before: following a peaceful sit-down outside the base in 2001 she was also charged with breaching the peace. Despite arguing that she intended exactly the opposite '“ to prevent a breach of the peace and a greater crime taking place '“ she was convicted. An eventual appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was declared inadmissible in 2003.