THREATS of nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine and Gaza show the world is closer to disaster than any time since the Cold War, an international group of parliamentarians has warned.
In a statement agreed upon and then issued from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), representatives from parliaments in countries including Japan, Scotland, Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Norway, and French Polynesia also spoke against the policy of “nuclear deterrence” favoured by governments like the UK’s.
The group, whose members mostly represented countries who have not signed up to the TPNW, said that deterrence was not a security strategy but a “reckless gamble with humanity’s survival” – and pledged to push their respective governments to move towards nuclear disarmament.
“As parliamentarians, we have the responsibility to protect the people we represent,” they said.
“Nuclear weapons do not protect people. Their use would unleash catastrophic, uncontrollable devastation, overwhelming any humanitarian response and destabilizing global security. Even their mere existence fuels proliferation, heightens tensions, and increases the risk of miscalculation or accident.
“We therefore cannot rely on nuclear deterrence as a security strategy. It would be a reckless gamble with humanity’s survival to base national security on a constant, credible threat of actual use of nuclear weapons.
“Threatening mass destruction runs counter to the security interests of humanity as a whole and renders nuclear deterrence as a dangerous, misguided and unacceptable approach to security.”
SNP MSP Bill Kidd, who is both the convener of Holyrood’s cross party group on nuclear disarmament and co-president of the global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), was at the meeting representing Scotland.
The UK Government has declined to sign or ratify the TPNW, but the SNP have committed to doing so in an independent Scotland.
Speaking on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that “if ever there was a time to reaffirm support for the nuclear deterrent, it is now”, given the escalating tensions with Russia in Europe.
However, parliamentarians at the UN argued that those geopolitical tensions underline “the importance of implementing and universalising the TPNW”.
They said: “Far from ensuring security, nuclear weapons put the world at increasing risk – from Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons in the context of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, to a minister of Israel suggesting to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, to threats of renewed nuclear testing, to expanded nuclear-sharing arrangements in Europe, and the modernization of arsenals in every single nuclear-armed state.
“Loose rhetoric about ‘small’ nuclear weapons and tactical use has lowered the threshold for nuclear war and brought us closer to catastrophe than at any time since the Cold War."
Israel and Russia are two of the world's nine nuclear-armed nations, alongside the UK, US, France, China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea.
The parliamentarians' statement goes on: "Instead of addressing these risks, a small number of governments respond by doubling down – expanding their reliance on nuclear deterrence, issuing counter-threats, and pouring ever more resources into these weapons of mass destruction.
“Such a strategy is doomed to fail.”
The statement from the parliamentarians will be delivered to the UN summit by Hinamoeura Cross, a French Polynesian politician who – along with the entire population of her nation – was impacted by radioactive fallout from French nuclear tests.
