WAR veterans united with peace campaigners young and old to form a symbolic ring round the Ministry of Defence on Saturday demanding an end to the £100 billion Trident replacement plan.

Thousands joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demonstration aimed at putting the massive price tag for Britain’s weapons of mass destruction on the electoral agenda.

A two-mile stretch of a now-famous pink peace scarf knitted in sections by people across the world was held aloft by hundreds campaigning against what D-Day veteran Jim Radford branded a “wasteful obsenity.”

“It is clear to everyone, and especially to our military commanders, that nuclear weapons do not deter terrorists or protect us from any of the threats we face,” the Veterans for Peace member said.

CND spokesman Luke Massey said the planned spending on new nuclear weapons put England’s A&E meltdown into stark focus. The hospitals crisis, which has seen thousands languishing in corridors at cuts-hit emergency departments, was “a crisis of priorities — a crisis of government choice,” he said.

“It just doesn’t square with people that we’re being told there’s no money for public services, there’s no money for the NHS, but there seems to be £100 billion for a weapons system which even the former head of the armed forces has described as completely useless.”

CND general secretary Kate Hudson said: “Millions of people around the country oppose this £100 billion monstrosity, and it’s not hard to see why, when military figures say Trident’s useless— and when we look at just how transformative that money could be if spent on the NHS, job creation, renewable energy, housing and education.”

Occupy London activists joined the demonstration, later breaching a Parliament Square ban to rally against corporate influence over British foreign policy.