Scotland’s peace campaigners are raising their voices once again, calling the UK’s renewed commitment to US-led nuclear weapons systems an ethical and legal disgrace.
At the heart of their anger is a planned deployment of American nuclear-capable aircraft and bombs, a move that not only violates the spirit of international law but deepens the UK’s dependency on the United States and its military agenda.
Campaigners point to the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, as a solemn promise made by nuclear states to disarm over time.
By tying itself even closer to a new generation of US nuclear weaponry, the UK is walking away from that promise.
It’s a decision that places the UK in direct conflict with the will of the global majority, as more and more non-nuclear nations call for progress through the 2021 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The TPNW was designed as a roadmap towards global disarmament.
Instead of following that path, campaigners say the UK is choosing to lock itself into an even deeper entanglement with the USA’s shifting and often aggressive military strategies.
That, they argue, has already played out in silence.
The UK government has failed to strongly condemn the illegal bombing of Iran by the United States, or to call out Israel’s repeated breaches of international law in Gaza and beyond.
Even now, there is no meaningful UK action to halt arms exports to Israel or prevent British-made weapons from fuelling the crisis.
In Scotland, the issue cuts especially deep.
Nuclear weapons are stored here, transported through our towns and tested in our waters.
We live with the constant risk of accident, contamination and unimaginable catastrophe, not because of any decision made by our people, but because of political choices made elsewhere.
These weapons are designed not to defend, but to annihilate.
They cannot distinguish between soldier and civilian, young and old, battlefield and village.
Their use would destroy ecosystems, poison land and sea, and shatter the basic conditions for life.
Under international law, such indiscriminate and inhumane violence is illegal.
Yet these weapons remain, their presence justified by the language of deterrence, a word that masks the moral and legal outrage they represent.
Scotland’s peace movement believes the UK’s nuclear stance is not only reckless but shameful.
They are calling for a clear shift in policy.
One that breaks away from dependence on US firepower.
One that respects international law and upholds human dignity.
And one that finally reflects the values held by so many across Scotland, values rooted in friendship, fairness and a deep desire to live without the shadow of destruction hanging over us.
These weapons are not held in our name.
And they do not reflect the nation we wish to be.
