PARC Against DARC holds a large rally in support of Planning Minister’s 'call in' decision on DARC Radar

PARC Against DARC, the campaign which was established in 2024 to oppose the US military’s proposed controversial DARC radar array in Pembrokeshire held a rally in support of Plaid Cymru’s recent decision to call in the planning decision to now be arbitrated by the Welsh Government itself.

The demonstration at County Hall, Haverfordwest had been planned to coincide with the Council’s Planning committee meeting which was set to discuss on DARC Tuesday 28th. However, the protest was re-imagined as a vigil in light of the decision being taken out of Pembrokeshire County Council’s hands early last week.

Attention was also paid to sitting MP Henry Tufnell who last week finally broke what campaigners have documented as a ‘long silence on DARC’ by releasing a public statement in support of the US military proposals and criticising Welsh Government for calling in the decision on the application of global military significance.

Where’s Toffnell?

In a group photo, attendees wore Henry Tufnell masks on sticks which they had dubbed as ‘Toffsicles’ in a quip in the direction of his aristocratic, English background, describing him as a ‘parachuted in MP from England who knew nothing about local issues’. A sign, which asked "Where's Toffnell?”, was also displayed in a play on words around his ‘Tufnell’ - ‘Toffnell’ name, as the crowd posed for photographs in front of the County Hall building.

The PARC campaign has previously criticised Tufnell’s stance on the topic highlighting in particular what they describe as his inexperience and naivety around key points surrounding the project. In particular the campaign finds through conducted research that there would be a net loss of 100s of jobs at the site if DARC was ever built, citing grounds that DARC would necessitate the evacuation of the 14th Signal Regiment from the base, that the MOD cannot know the future staffing arrangements of the site, and that any jobs, conceded to be of low numbers by the MOD, would go to specialist US military operators. Concerns regarding the insignificance of promised job figures were echoed in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park’s official objection to DARC as part of planning consultations earlier in the year.

DARC Jobs? What Jobs?

A spokesperson said: “Tufnell is clearly very far out of his depth on this issue and obviously hasn’t even taken the time to do any of his own research or keep up to date with current facts. Instead he shows his political naivety, wading in to make boilerplate statements on a topic he clearly doesn’t understand, and reeling out MOD taking points such as the incredibly tired ‘jobs argument’ which we have irrefutably debunked as a completely false and misleading rhetoric. It’s actually quite embarrassing really that our new MP who previously tried and failed to be elected in two English constituencies seems so utterly clueless on such a grave issue with very deep ramifications globally and for the county.”

“It seems farcical to us that his main argument centres on the idea that Welsh Government should not have taken over the application from the local council when this radar proposal is touted for inclusion in Trump’s Golden Dome, one of the most extreme and far-reaching global military proposals ever conceived of. It’s not like this is some small application for an industrial unit or shed at Brawdy the MOD is applying for. The stated aim of DARC is for the United States to use projects like DARC to militarily dominate all of space, so it is simply laughable that Tufnell is spinning the MOD’s line that Welsh government shouldn’t have intervened in a proposal of blatantly national and international significance, as it was completely right to do.”

Military Radars are first priority targets of war

Demonstrators also held placards which read: “DIM RADAR” - “NO RADAR” as speeches were heard from campaigners and local peace activists opposed to the radar.

Local business owner Tim Rees, organiser of Unearthed Festival, kicked off proceedings with Pembrokeshire-based actor Jerome Flynn of Game of Thrones also addressing the crowd.

Speakers drew links between the radar proposals and US-backed genocide in Gaza and Lebanon in recent years, describing how the US military with its 750 military bases around the world clings to its past but now faces fast-declining dominance. Speakers also highlighted how, following the US and Israel's attacks on Iran on February 28th this year, Iran’s surgical destruction of all US military radars in the Gulf region as an instant response to a US-Israel-led invasion exemplified strongly how DARC would make Brawdy and Pembrokeshire a first-priority military target in a time of war.

MOD Spin and misdirection

A speaker for the PARC campaign also also took aim at what was described as the ‘fantasy’ MOD claim that DARC could constitute an international space traffic management system for orbiting satellites. In a detailed speech the representative argued that in the absence of international cooperation akin to air or maritime traffic management on Earth, ‘you can’t have a space traffic management system that’s run by one country,’ citing US hoarding of data on objects in space for military purposes as one of a number of reasons, including the incapacity of current space traffic assessment systems to cope with existing space collision warnings and the incapability of any known satellites to evade hostile attacks, why DARC’s space safety claims ‘seriously don’t add up.’

Under devolved Welsh powers, the decision now rests with the new Plaid Cymru government to decide on the fate of the US’s DARC radar plans. Having voted at their Plaid Cymru national conference in 2024 to oppose DARC and laid out several major concerns within their official call-in letter to Pembrokeshire County Council which include landscape, ecology, irreplaceable habitat destruction, high levels of public interest and major potential national security risks, it looks likely that a Cymru Vs. Westminster showdown could loom as the two governments lock horns over the controversial proposal.