British military aircraft regularly carry highly radioactive material across the Atlantic to one of the RAF’s largest bases on flights vital to the Trident nuclear weapons system, according to new research, Declassified UK can reveal. The little-known flights are a lifeline sustaining the ‘special relationship’ embodied in the secretive US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement due to be renewed later this year without the need for any parliamentary scrutiny or even approval. At least ten of the special round trips between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and US military bases, usually by large RAF C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, take place every year, according to Nukewatch, which monitors traffic in nuclear weapons and their components. In a joint report with Nukewatch, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) told Declassified: “The UK cannot claim to have an independent nuclear weapons system when it is so reliant on the US for technical information and nuclear materials, including...