Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
In the U.K., Brexit Britain is holding on to its belief that it can someday regain and retain its place at the political and military center of the world. However, it is ironic that many of the nations that Britain wants to trade with as it leaves the European Union are in the Nuclear Free Trade Zones and those nations have been part of developing and signing the treaty banning nuclear weapons with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Brits love of patriotic militarism with navy ships and flags spearheading trade missions is likely to have an effect that is the opposite of what is intended. The nuclear-free nations might be no match for the military might of NATO and the other nuclear nations, but they do have complete control over their own ports, transportation networks and trade arrangements.
Ben Donaldson is the head of campaigns at the United Nations Association. He said, “The ground is moving under the U.K.’s feet. Whether or not the U.K. supports the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the impact will be felt. The treaty is popular with states the U.K. is looking to strike trade deals with and the U.K. 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 U.K.’s current position of variously ignoring and attacking the treaty and its supporters is unsustainable and damages its influence on the world stage.”
The fiftieth nation will soon sign the Treaty. There is some hope that the nations which possess nuclear weapons themselves will be finding it harder and harder to justify their nuclear weapons programs to their own populations.
There have been widespread fears that U.S. President Trump might press the red button that launches nuclear Armageddon as easily as he presses the send button for his latest tweet. Even in Britain, there is a backlash against this problematic leader. There have not been protests on the streets of the U.S. and the U.K. like there were at the height of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). However, more and more local councils are signing up to be nuclear-free zones. In the U.K., one example is Manchester City Council. In the U.S., the whole state of California which has the fourth largest GDP in the world has declared itself to be a nuclear-free zone. Increasingly, major financial institutions are divesting their stock holdings in companies that are part of the supply chain for and the manufacture of nuclear weapons. This is being advanced by an initiative called Wall of Fame.
It is hoped that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will turn up the heat on the nuclear armed nations and their allies and force them to stop ignoring the moral and ethical case for a total ban on nuclear weapons. An increasingly large part of the world wants nothing to do with the dangerous and useless nuclear deterrence