Brexit Britain is clinging on to its belief that it can regain and retain its place at the centre of the world. But the irony is that many of the nations that it wants to trade with as it turns its back on Europe are in the Nuclear Weapon Free Zones and have been part of developing and signing the treaty banning nuclear weapons.

The Brexiters’ love of patriotic militarism with navy ships and flags spearheading trade missions are likely to have the opposite effect than expected. These nuclear-free nations might be no match for the military might of NATO and the other nuclear powers but they do have complete control of their own trade.

“The ground is moving under the UK’s feet,” says Ben Donaldson, head of campaigns at the United Nations Association. “Whether or not the UK supports the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the impact will be felt. The treaty is popular with states the UK is looking to strike trade deals with and the UK is finding itself increasingly diplomatically isolated on this issue. A large majority of countries have made it clear they have lived in fear of nuclear fallout for too long and want action. As well as being immoral, the UK’s current position of variously ignoring and attacking the treaty and its supporters is unsustainable and damages its influence on the world stage.”

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As the fiftieth nation prepares to sign the treaty, there is hope that the nations with nuclear weapons themselves are finding it harder to justify themselves to their own populations.

There have been concerns about US President Donald Trump pressing the red button in the same way he presses ‘tweet’. Even in Britain there is a backlash. Although there are not protests on the streets like at the height of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), more and more councils are signing up to be nuclear-free zones, such as Manchester City Council. In America, the whole state of California, which has the fourth largest GDP in the world, has gone down this route. Increasingly, financial institutions are divesting in companies that are part of the supply chain and manufacturing nuclear weapons in an initiative called Wall of Fame.

Hopefully this treaty will start to call time on the nuclear weapon nations and their allies ignoring the moral and ethical case for a ban, when an increasingly large part of the world wants nothing to do with these dangerous and potentially powerless ‘deterrents’.
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/21/the-nuclear-treaty-dividing-the-world/