MOST Scots opposed the UK Government ’s decision to renew the Trident nuclear weapons system. A majority of our elected representatives at Holyrood and Westminster support the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans the development, production, possession and use of nuclear weapons.

If Scotland becomes independent, it is likely that removal of Trident from the Faslane naval base on the Clyde will be one of the highest priorities of the new Scottish Government. In July 2019, SNP CND published a roadmap detailing how this could be achieved.

But we cannot afford to wait for independence before we take steps towards achieving nuclear disarmament.

The threat of nuclear war is the highest it has been since Britain first tested nuclear weapons in the 1950s. Arms control measures are collapsing and a new nuclear arms race is under way.

The demise of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has paved the way for Russia and the US to develop new mid-range nuclear weapons and raised the prospect of US ground-launched cruise missiles once again being deployed in Europe. The future of the last remaining strategic arms reduction treaty, New START, is also in doubt.

Soon there may be no limits on the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia, which together possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The two powers are already engaged in a dangerous tit-for-tat exchange, with each claiming that it needs to develop new nuclear weapons in response to the other. Each escalation brings us closer to nuclear Armageddon.

Some “experts” have gone as far as arguing that the US should develop an artificial intelligence-based system for launching its nuclear weapons autonomously, to counter Russia’s development of hypersonic weapons. Anyone doubting the sheer lunacy of such a suggestion should be made to sit down and watch the Cold War classic Dr Strangelove.

In the film, the Soviet Union develops exactly such a system because “we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a Doomsday gap”. Spoiler: it doesn’t end well.

Meanwhile, North Korea is testing new nuclear missiles and China is rapidly developing a new generation of more “usable” nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan are expanding the size of their nuclear arsenals, making deteriorating relations between the two states over disputed region Kashmir all the more alarming.

Any use of nuclear weapons would have devastating environmental and humanitarian consequences, as survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki attest. A “limited” nuclear war using as few as 100 nuclear weapons would disrupt the global climate and trigger a “nuclear famine”, putting two billion people at risk of starvation. A major nuclear war would end civilisation as we know it.

IT is crucial that we use all the means at our disposal to eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons, before it’s too late. An easy and effective way to do this is to tell your bank and pension fund to stop investing in the companies that make nuclear weapons.

The 2019 report by Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland, “Stop Funding the End of the World”, shows that Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group (which includes Bank of Scotland) together provided financing worth £5.1 billion to the world’s top nuclear weapons producers between 2017 and 2019. If we can stop these companies from accessing financing by convincing banks to divest, this will create a powerful incentive for them to stop producing nuclear weapons.

You can also write to your local councillor about divestment. Scotland’s 11 local authority pension funds together hold shares worth over £321 million in 18 nuclear weapons companies. Nearly £111m of that is invested in key companies behind the new nuclear arms race: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman.

These companies benefited from the surge in missile contracts awarded by the US government following the announcement of its withdrawal from the INF Treaty and all four are involved in development of new types of nuclear weapons.

Each decision to divest increases the stigma associated with nuclear weapons and thus supports international efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. The example of cluster munitions cited in Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland’s report shows just how effective divestment campaigning can be.

The campaign is already gaining momentum in Scotland. In the first half of 2019, Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire and Midlothian councils passed resolutions calling on their pension funds to divest from nuclear weapons. With enough pressure, more will follow.

If everyone in Scotland who opposes nuclear weapons were to take these small steps, we could disrupt the nuclear weapons supply chain and help to delegitimise the British Government’s attachment to weapons of mass destruction.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is now more than halfway towards entering into force, having received 26 of the 50 ratifications that are needed. Scotland may not have the power to sign the treaty until we become independent, but we can advance the treaty’s aims now by ending our financial support for nuclear weapons producers.

Linda Pearson works with the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland network