Ms Helen John, a founder of the Greenham Common and Menwith Hill women's protests, will run as an independent parliamentary candidate in Sedgefield, Tony Blair's constituency. She will be representing Women for Life on Earth and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Ms John decided to run after she realised the Prime Minister would try to avoid any debate on ballistic missile defence in the run-up to the election. On 1 May President Bush announced his intention to proceed as rapidly as possible with the deployment of both theatre missile defence and ballistic missile defence, which involve breaking both the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. U.S. facilities based in Yorkshire, at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill, are crucial to the plans. A high-level delegation from Washington arrived in London on the day the election was announced to urge the Blair government to embrace ballistic missile defence, even though it makes Yorkshire more vulnerable to attack.

"Ballistic missile defence," John says, "is the armed wing of globalisation. It is a euphemism for plans to ensure US military and economic domination of the planet. We have documents from the US Space Command and the Rumsfeld report which show that BMD is part of an overall plan to station offensive weapons in orbit around the planet. It is not in Britain's interest to participate in this. Sedgefield constituents have the right to be treated with much more respect by their standing Member of Parliament. He should be serving their interests and those of the United Kingdom, not America's."

At a recent meeting of the Global Network in Leeds, the British Prime Minister was accidentally referred to as "Tony Bush," an understandable confusion at the moment. Ms. John hopes that by running against him in the current election he will be forced to clarify his position, rather than remain sitting on the fence. "It is up to him to show who he really represents," John said.

There is television footage of John's election announcement, at the international Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space conference, Leeds, UK, available through: Lynn Ferguson, Mobile No. 078-8921-7446

The candidate can be reached for further comment on: 44-(0)1943-468593.