British nuclear 'guinea pigs' demand Burnham keep his word

LondonAndy Burnham's arrival at Downing Street has spurred British veterans who participated in the UK's nuclear tests during the fifties and sixties to pressure the government for the current premier to fulfill a promise he had repeatedly defended when he was Mayor of Greater Manchester.

After years of publicly expressing his support for the cause, and even denouncing a government cover-up, Burnham is now the man who can make one of the survivors' main demands a reality: the creation of an independent, rapid public inquiry with the power to establish responsibility for the treatment received by thousands of servicemen sent to witness nuclear explosions. Two years ago, Burnham stated that "we have not yet reached the point where the whole truth has been told."

Veteran associations argue that time is running out. Many survivors are between seventy and ninety years old, and they demand that the State act before the generation that can firsthand explain what happened in the Australian deserts and Pacific islands where the UK developed its nuclear program during the Cold War disappears.

Between 1952 and 1967, approximately 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen, as well as scientists and civilian personnel, participated in forty-five atomic and thermonuclear explosions and hundreds of experiments with radioactive materials. On many occasions, soldiers were placed relatively close to the detonation point with protection that is now considered clearly insufficient: ordinary military clothing and, in some cases, simple sunglasses.

Archive footage from British Pathé shows troops sitting on beaches, with their backs to the explosion, being ordered to turn around a few seconds later to observe the characteristic mushroom cloud.

The veterans, who consider themselves treated like guinea pigs or lab rats, describe experiences that are still impossible for them to forget today. Some explain that the flash was so intense that they could see the bones and blood vessels of their own hands, "as if they were living X-rays." Others recall young recruits of seventeen or eighteen years old crying with fear as they witnessed explosions of a power that far surpassed anything seen by their eyes until then.

Problems of all kinds

For decades, many participants have attributed a large part of the health problems they have subsequently suffered to nuclear tests. The veterans report high rates of different types of cancer, leukemia, cardiovascular diseases, immunological disorders, miscarriages in their offspring, or congenital malformations in them. They also claim that numerous medical records disappeared or remain classified as secret, preventing them from knowing what radiation they actually received.

One of the best-known cases is that of John Morris, now eighty-seven years old, and a resident of Greater Manchester. At just eighteen, he was stationed on Christmas Island, in the Pacific (now Kiritimati, belonging to the Republic of Kiribati), where he witnessed four hydrogen bomb explosions and worked washing contaminated clothes. His is a harrowing testimony. He claims he was less than twenty miles from the detonations wearing only his uniform with shorts, a shirt, and sunglasses. Over the years, he has developed cancer and other illnesses, while his first son died at only four months due to severe congenital anomalies that Morris links to his radiation exposure.

Morris is also one of the visible faces of the legal offensive that began last year against the Ministry of Defence. A group of veterans filed a criminal complaint with the London Metropolitan Police, accompanied by a five-hundred-page dossier prepared with the help of the Daily Mirror. They argued that there may have been misconduct in the exercise of public functions and systematic cover-ups of radiation-related experiments.

Burnham has been one of the main political allies of this campaign. Just one year before arriving at 10 Downing Street he personally handed over, along with veterans, the aforementioned documentation to Scotland Yard. He then assured that there were clear indications of a "possible cover-up".

The current prime minister also compared this case with other major British scandals, such as contaminated blood or the Hillsborough tragedy, a catastrophe during an FA Cup semi-final, which resulted in 97 Liverpool fans dead from a human crush, and which Burnham strongly argued should be clarified. "The State – he said as mayor, and previously as Minister of Health under Gordon Brown (2009) – has an obligation to establish the whole truth".

Starmer, seen and not seen

The same demand that veterans are now making again was already made in 2021, in that case to the then Labour leader Keir Starmer. They met with him even though at that time he was only the leader of the opposition. After he came to power, in July 2024, the first Starmer no les hizo más caso, sin embargo. Ahora, la esperanza de los veteranos es que el first continue to be consistent with its service sheet and promote what it said was necessary: independent investigation.

From Manchester, Mayor Burnham defended the aforementioned "urgent and time-limited" public investigation that would allow the facts to be determined, victims to be compensated, and the harm caused to be officially acknowledged. Already as an MP, at the end of last June, a couple of weeks before becoming Prime Minister, Burnham mentioned nuclear test veterans again in his first speech to the House of Commons. He called for Parliament to hear their plea for a special tribunal: "I believe there is relevant evidence of a possible criminal cover-up, and it is best to give veterans an urgent, time-limited public inquiry to get to the facts," he said.

The Ministry of Defense is dragging its feet, however, and rejects accusations of a cover-up. In a statement, it assured that the government maintains an "open, constructive, and transparent" dialogue with veterans. At the same time, it recalled that it has already ordered an exhaustive review of available medical documentation to clarify what information it retains about participants in the nuclear program. It also insisted that scientific investigations commissioned in recent years have not found conclusive evidence globally linking participation in atomic tests with a higher incidence of mortality or cancer compared to other military personnel.