Civil society has been positively welcomed at the negotiating conference, in recognition of its powerful role in promoting and supporting the Ban initiative. And activity has abounded!
CND organised a very well-attended fringe meeting looking at the impact that the Ban Treaty is likely to have on the UK. Themes addressed included Britain’s nuclear weapons system Trident, the determination of Scotland to rid itself of the nukes based at Faslane, and Labour Party policy on the Ban Treaty in the light of its Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, being a strong anti-nuclear campaigner.
The meeting was chaired by CND’s Dave Webb, with panellists Tim Wallis author of The Truth about Trident, Janet Fenton from Scottish CND, and Fabian Hamilton MP, the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament.
Tim described the main factors of the campaign against Trident in the UK over the last few years, including the cost of its replacement, its illegality under international law, and the jobs and diversification issue. He noted that a recent poll indicates that over 75% of the British public wants the government to participate in the Ban Treaty talks.
Janet outlined the significance of the success of the nuclear disarmament movement in Scotland. She addressed the fact that the Scottish government has no say in the ‘reserved matters’ of defence and/or nuclear weapons. This, together with a powerful year-long NVDA campaign at Faslane has helped build an extremely strong anti-nuclear movement.
Fabian Hamilton addressed the question of how the Labour Party, now the largest political party in Europe, might win over public opinion on nuclear disarmament before the next general election, due in 2020. He demolished Trident as being independent or a deterrent but added that, following the vote in parliament to replace Trident, the idea of adopting a unilateral disarmament policy has been abandoned. This makes the ban treaty even more important as a way of stigmatising the possession and threatened use of Trident.
A lively Q&A session followed!
Our Chair, Dave Webb, also reports: ‘I went with a small UK delegation to visit the British Ambassador who had looked so stupid at the joint demonstration made by the US, UK and others at the start of the conference. He would not see us but did see Fabian Hamilton. We met instead with a senior diplomat who is expert on disarmament. He listened to our questions and comments and made notes on everything. He reiterated the government line throughout though (of course) – which is that a Ban Treaty would endanger the NPT. He even called the Ban Treaty dangerous!’
Clearly we still have much work to do.