In This Alert: A General Election plea for your vote on 4th July 2024 We need your help to Make Nuclear Weapons a Red Line and Peace Garden Landscaping Day Bridgend Farmhouse, 19 June 2024 |
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Make Nuclear Weapons a Red Line We need your help to ensure that Scotland sends a strong message to the UK Government about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), supported by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The TPNW comprehensively completely bans anything to do with nuclear weapons, and is the first nuclear weapons legislation to recognise the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons on women’s human rights, their bodies, indigenous communities and the environment. It is a litmus test for other issues for future MPs - like the climate, migration issues and an anti-war stance. |
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ICAN’s Parliamentary Pledge aims to get every country to sign the TPNW. |
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Scotland was represented in our last parliament by 57 MPs, and 44 of them signed the pledge. We want at least as many of our next MPs to sign because: The TPNW provides a legal framework for the elimination of nuclear weapons and is supported by around 130 out of 193 UN member states, with 70 already ratified (i.e. have included the ban in their national legislation). When Parliamentarians in nuclear-armed states pledge, it reinforces the international commitment by states already working to make the Treaty universal. In Scotland, where the UK deploys its nuclear weapons, having a clear majority of MPs signing the pledge seriously undermines the UK nuclear weapons policy, and highlights the lack of mandate that the UK has in the land where their weapons are based.
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Our message is clear: nuclear weapons are a red line, and if candidates do not agree to sign the pledge to support the TPNW, nuclear disarmament supporters will not vote for them. It looks like the end of Tory rule at Westminster, but let’s make sure it’s also the end of politicians who don’t understand that in Scotland, nuclear weapons are a red line. As an organisation we can ask candidates, but the people they will listen to are their potential constituents, the people that will vote for them. So we need all of you to write to your candidates. Please, will you use the data on the nuclearban.scot/people and parliament page to write to your own constituency candidates and ask them to sign the pledge? The website is for all the ICAN partners and is hosted by Scottish CND. There is a model letter here, and more information in the ‘What’s occurring’ section on the home page. We are publishing the position of all candidates on the site – so your MP’s name will be there with our recommendation not to vote for candidates who won’t sign. |
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Writing the emails need not take too much of your time, and we really believe that your response to this request will make a huge difference to Scotland’s future. Please copy secretary@banthebomb.org into your request, and also forward any responses. Janet Fenton +44(0)7795594573 Organiser: Secure Scotland Secretary: Scottish CND and the Scottish Parliament Nuclear Disarmament Cross-party Group International Steering Group: ICAN (AIDD) |
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