We will be moving to a slightly smaller office which will help us to reduce our costs. You can still send us mail to our old address as we will continue to be able to collect it. There isn’t much change to our address – we will now be at 1a instead of 1b.

For any more information about the move please do not hesitate to contact us.

In early 2003, at a US air force base in England as B-52′s bombers prepare to bomb Iraq, a Welsh Weapons Inspector is stopped and searched under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

In recalling the words of a Secretary of State at another massive anti war demonstration: Let them march all they want as long as they continue to pay their taxes, the Inspector hangs up his de-contamination outfit and dons a suit to take on the Inland Revenue.

He refuses to pay his income tax arguing that compelling taxpayers to pay for acts of deliberate killing they profoundly disagree with, is a violation of the law.

As a campaign grows to change the law there is vehement opposition as the State insists that a peace tax would set a dangerous precedent.

Too often war is associated with deaths and statistics and audiences miss out on some of the more subtle but complex issues associated with it. This film opens up these issues and creates new insights! – Head of Philosophy and Ethics, Sir William Perkins School.

Contempt of Conscience is a documentary about the formation, and goals of, a group of conscientious objectors called The Peace Tax Seven.

Yesterday conscience participated in the demonstration against the DESi arms fair opposite the Houses of Parliament.

conscience believes that your taxes should not go towards subsidising the arms trade in any way shape or form, which is why we were out yesterday with our Grim Reaper, Tax Collector and new “money bomb” protesting alongside other peace campaigners and organisations. If you would like to join us on our next demonstration please contact the office at info@conscienceonline.org.uk or call 0207 561 1061.

Ultimately, conscience does not believe that anyone with a conscientious objection to war should be paying for these weapons.

Over the past few years we have witnessed the increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, to undertake armed attacks around the globe. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia have all been subject to drone strikes by US or British drones controlled from many thousands of miles away. Palestine is also subjected to drone strikes from Israel.

Although there are claims that the drone strikes are precise and accurate, there are many reports – particular from Pakistan where media are able to obtain first hand reports – of high numbers of civilian casualties.   Legal experts as well as peace and human rights organisations have expressed serious concerns about the growing use of armed drones and even some within the British Ministry of Defence have raised questions about the push towards greater autonomy for armed drones.

As part of International Keep Space for Peace Week, during the week of 1st to 8th October, the Drones Campaign Network is encouraging organisations, local groups and individuals to engage in actions to both raise public awareness about drones and to engage in action to ‘ground the drones’.

For more details and to download a briefing see www.dronecampaignnetwork.org.uk

Our Peace Tax Returns are for people who have a moral or religious objection to military spending on the grounds of conscience and wish to declare their objection to the UK government. We believe that a statement similar to the one in this petition should be included in the official tax return produced by HMRC.

This spring is a fearful time for many across the Arab world who face violence and repression as they dare to ask for fairness and decent treatment from their governments.  It is also a fearful time for the many across the UK who face redundancies, precarious working and benefits cuts, worrying about how to make ends meet.

But it is also a time of possibility.  This is a special moment of public and media pressure on government spending.  Military spending has already been cut – though it still enjoys a relatively privileged position in comparison with other government departments.

We want military spending to reduce permanently, not just in a time of ‘austerity’.  We also want more to be spent on peacebuilding and alternatives to military action.   This is an exciting time to be talking about how much the government ought to be spending, and on what, with millions of people feeling reluctant to continue paying for weapons when vital public services are deemed to be worthless.

Please help us to keep up the pressure this spring, by giving as much as you can to enable us to keep working.  With your help, conscience will always be a voice amid the chaos, resisting complicity in war and suffering.

In peace,
Gayle Kinkead
Campaigns and Communications Officer

I want to help keep up the pressure
I enclose a gift of    _£20    _£30    _£50    _£100    other £______

Please download and print our appeal letter here and detach this slip and return it with your cheque made out to ‘conscience’ to:

conscience
FREEPOST LON 18505
London
N19 5BR

Please note that as we are not a charity we can’t accept CAF vouchers

thank you for your support

Donations can also be made by PayPal via the button on the top right-hand corner of this page.

The purpose of this report is to help foster debate about what could and should be done at this point in the War in Afghanistan. Public debate is vital, and as a country at war, we should be actively looking for solutions that bring about peace.

At the beginning of 2011 the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee published a deeply critical report highlighting the current failings of the UK’s approach to the War in Afghanistan.

Engaging Afghanistan reports on the extent of the misery being faced by the Afghan people and examines its causes. It finds that the emphasis on using military force to defeat the Taliban-led insurgency is deeply flawed as it has alienated the Afghan people and done little to address their most pressing concerns. More positively, Engaging Afghanistan also offers an alternative, non-military approach to Afghanistan inspired by the Good Friday Agreement.

This report has been written for conscience by Thomas Furber. If you have any comments or suggestions you would like to raise about the content of this report or if you would like to contact the author, please email conscience at info@conscienceonline.org.uk

You can now file your peace tax return online! conscience TAXES FOR PEACE NOT WAR, has recreated our Peace Tax Return so that you can register your protest to paying for war online as well as on paper. Please sign the petition at www.conscienceonline.org.uk/peacetaxreturn

The petition is for people who have a moral or religious objection to military spending on the grounds of conscience and wish to declare their objection to the UK government. We believe that a question similar to the one in this petition should be included in the official tax return produced by HMRC.

We have noticed that some MPs are giving the same responses against our proposals and we wanted to equip our members and any interested person with some information that they can use as an effective rebuttal should they wish to respond.

If you have any questions about the campaign please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Question: Would you also withdraw funding from the use of military resources for good and peaceful services?

In addition to campaigning for the right of conscientious objectors to have the part of their taxes currently spent on military security spent on non-military security, Conscience also campaigns for a progressive increase in the amount of money spent on non-military security and corresponding decrease in the amount spent on war and the preparations for war. Therefore, we acknowledge that change cannot happen overnight and the military do currently carry out functions that unfortunately cannot be carried out by any other body at present. Conscience sees a diminishing role for the military – as enough time and money has not yet been spent in non-military security. As the use of sustainable non-military security measures increase, the use of military will decrease and therefore also the role of the military as we see it today. In conclusion, we are not arguing that we should instantly withdraw funding from the good and peaceful services that the military currently carry out. We are asking for gradual change in the way we as a country maintain national security.

Question: How would any individual calculate what proportion of their tax was being used for defence purposes?

Government figures show how our taxes are spent. The MoD budget for 2009/10 was approximately £45 billion. The UK had an electorate of 44.4 million in 2009, all of whom pay taxes of one sort or another. Therefore, the average contribution to the military budget can be calculated by dividing the MoD budget by the number of voters – this equals £1013 per person for the 2009/10 tax year. Considering the complexities of the tax system – and schemes such as Gift Aid to facilitate charitable giving – our proposals would not prove too taxing for Inland Revenue officials. This is a red herring but also misses the point of our proposals. It will not be necessary to ensure the individual £10 notes from a conscientious objector do not go to the military. Simple calculations using the number of registered conscientious objectors, the average tax payment each voter makes to the military reveals how much of total tax revenue should be deposited in a fund for non-military security programmes.

Question: If the law is updated to include the right of conscientious objectors to have the part of their taxes currently spent on military security spent on non-military security instead then wouldn’t this open a floodgate of people wanting to withhold their taxes for various ethical reasons?

A common argument used against our proposal is that if conscientious objectors won the right to divert taxes away from military expenditure, a range of other groups and individuals would demand a similar right to divert their taxes away from paying for state education, new roads or the NHS, for example. Essentially, that the floodgates would open to others demanding similar rights. However, this floodgates argument does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

The peace tax case is different to others for a number of related reasons. The major difference between funding the military and the new road-building schemes, for example, is that the military intentionally kill and harm people as part of their role. No other area of government spending does so.

Secondly, the desire not to contribute to state education, for example, or not to contribute to road building via taxes, is a political objection, not one based on conscience. There are very few areas where the claim of conscience is recognised in law. First is conscientious objection to military service, the right we are trying to extend to cope with the changed nature of warfare. Second is the right of medical practitioners who have a conscientious objection to abortion being able to refuse to perform the operation. Third is the right of Sikhs being exempt from wearing motorcycle helmets as this would force them to remove their turbans. Before capital punishment was abolished in the UK one also had the right to refuse to perform executions.  Intentional killing holds because we are not talking about political objections but those driven by conscience that also have a legislative precedent (conscientious objection to military service was recognised by Parliament in 1916).

Thirdly, there is parliamentary precedent from the 1916 Military Service Act. This Act introduced military conscription for the majority but by establishing the right to conscientious objection also recognised the rights of a minority to not to be complicit in killing. When conscientious objection was recognised in 1916, a form of ‘alternative service’ was available to conscientious objectors e.g. working for an ambulance service. That choice of alternative service is not available to present day conscientious objectors, who are required to pay for the military regardless of matters of conscience. We are asking for a new form of alternative service: one that allows conscientious objectors to pay the military part of their taxes to a non-military fund and thus providing a means by which conscientious objectors can contribute to security and safety in good conscience.

Because the solution we propose provides for a conscientiously acceptable – and more effective and efficient – alternative (non-military security) it has no negative impact on the government’s job of providing security for the nation as a whole. Assuming we succeed with the update in the law, anyone aiming to use it as a precedent would have to follow a similar model i.e. they would have to provide a comparable alternative. Therefore, there would be no legal basis for withholding taxes or diverting them into an unrelated area. Furthermore, we are not aware of any groups campaigning on grounds of conscience for the right not to pay taxes for other government departments.