TODAY marks 76 years since the bombing of Hiroshima, yet we are still living with nuclear weapons and, despite the huge costs of Covid, the government is spending £170 billion to renew them.

It is important that we never lose sight of the human cost of the bombing. It is estimated that 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima, more than one-third of the local population. Only three days later a further 74,000 people died in Nagasaki. They were killed indiscriminately, with whole families and communities dying within seconds.

The blasts wiped out vital infrastructure for miles, while the radiation released by the bomb killed many more in the months that followed. The conditions unleashed by the bombs had never been seen before, with ground temperatures reaching 4000C and radioactive rain pouring down. First responders and frontline workers died in huge numbers, with 90% of nurses and physicians killed and almost all hospitals in the areas being rendered unusable.

With fewer survivors every year, it is vital we continue to tell these stories and mark these deaths. They cannot be allowed to be forgotten. Each of these people had lives with families and loved ones. The vast majority were civilians. Their deaths should have been the moment when the politicians and military establishments of the world said never again. But the number of these weapons has increased significantly since then.

The warheads we have today are even more deadly. The Trident missiles kept here in Scotland are thought to be eight times as powerful as the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they were ever to be used, their death toll would likely be even greater. Despite this, the Tories have pledged to spend even more, with a commitment to increasing the number of warheads by 40% in the years ahead.

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One of the main reasons why consecutive UK governments have committed to Trident is for “status”. Tony Blair was pretty open about this in his autobiography, writing: “I thought giving [nuclear weapons] up too big a downgrading of our status as a nation.” It’s certainly a very narrow and dangerous interpretation of status. But perhaps not surprising for a man with Blair’s record of war.

The reality is there are several powerful and influential nations that have never had nuclear weapons and never will. At present, only nine countries possess them. I hope we are never in a world in which the maintenance of hundreds of billions of pounds worth of arms that could wipe out millions of lives has become a condition of global influence.

Polling shows Scots don’t want nuclear weapons to be based here, and nor does the Scottish Parliament. But we don’t have any say in it. As long as we remain part of the UK we will remain wedded to an aggressive and immoral military strategy and foreign policy that puts nuclear proliferation ahead of public services and human rights.

The £170 billion that will be spent to renew them could have a huge impact in helping our recovery. The pandemic has underlined the pressures our services are under and the fragility of large parts of our economy. Millions of people were already suffering from Tory cuts and austerity before lockdown, but things have got even worse now. That is where this money should be redirected. You can’t nuke your way into prosperity. Nobody can eat a bomb.

But even if Trident had no cost implications, it would still be totally immoral to keep it. Especially when we think of the scale of destruction that was inflicted on Japan and what that would look like if Trident was used tomorrow. Particularly with the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons coming into effect, we should be doing everything we can to disarm.

Independence would give us that opportunity. We can build a peaceful Scotland that stands with human rights defenders, not one that is constantly focused on projecting so-called strength and status through eye-watering military budgets, hypocritical arms sales to tyrants and joining disastrous military interventions.

The biggest threat facing us today is the climate crisis. We are already seeing the impact of extreme weather events around the world, and these will only become more common.

The pandemic has shown how interdependent we are on each other and how the health of people in one community can impact on another. And the same principle applies to the climate emergency. As we recover, we should be looking to build a fairer, greener Scotland that faces up to the real challenges of today. Not one that follows the same failed and destructive policies of the past.

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Today I will be thinking of the people killed 76 years ago in Japan. I will be thinking of what those bombs did to them and how their last seconds must have felt. I will also be thinking of the brave and dedicated activism of peace groups around the world, like Scottish CND, of which I am a proud member.

The best thing that this generation of political leaders can do to honour the memory of past generations and protect the lives of future ones is to ensure we say never again and finally eliminate nuclear weapons for good.