Jeremy Corbyn and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in New York | Nakba demonstration

The first week of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is coming to an end. Chair and Vice-Chair of Parliamentary CND, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP have been representing CND in New York and they’ve had a busy week. They joined a protest led by Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings of Japan, engaged with scientific experts, diplomats, and civil society groups on how to build local and international support for nuclear disarmament, and spoke at CND’s online side event at the Review Conference. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

As Jeremy mentions in their video from inside the UN General Assembly Hall (you can also view on Threads, Tik Tok, and Facebook), it’s depressing that despite growing nuclear danger, Britain continues to breach its obligations under the NPT!

Speaking to the Review Conference earlier this week, government minister Steven Doughty MP claimed that Britain, as a nuclear-armed state, is abiding by its NPT commitments. This includes Article 6, which stipulates that nuclear weapons states must ‘pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.’

However, the reality points to the contrary. This is evident in legal opinions sought by CND, which found that both the 2021 decision to increase Britain’s warhead limit, as well as last year’s announcement by Keir Starmer to purchase nuclear-capable F-35As for the RAF breach the NPT. Furthermore, pilots for these F-35A planes will be trained to carry US B61-12 nuclear bombs, which mounting evidence suggests were deployed to RAF Lakenheath last summer.

By actively modernising its nuclear submarines, expanding its nuclear capabilities through the purchase of the F-35A, and allowing US nuclear bombs to return to Britain, Starmer’s government is driving nuclear dangers and engaging in complete nuclear hypocrisy. By allowing Trump to use British bases, the government has facilitated the illegal bombing of Iran by nuclear-armed Israel and the US, despite Iran engaging in negotiations over its nuclear programme at the time of the attacks.

It is clear that it is the nuclear weapons states that are making the world more dangerous. We are at the start of a new nuclear arms race and it’s critical that we do all we can to get all nuclear weapons states to take their disarmament responsibilities seriously!

Restart START

Yesterday, CND was outside the Russian Embassy in London for the first of two protests calling on calling on Russia and the US to take their NPT disarmament obligations seriously.

In February, their last remaining bilateral arms control treaty, New START, was allowed to expire without a replacement. New START put limitations on the amount of deployed strategic warheads by both countries and was an important block on an all-out nuclear arms race.

You can learn more about yesterday’s protest here. The next demonstration will take place on Thursday, 21 May outside the US Embassy in London.

Commemorating the Nakba and defending the right to protest

On Saturday 16 May, the Palestine Coalition of which CND is a partner – will be holding the annual demonstration in London to commemorate the Nakba – the catastrophe inflicted on the Palestinian people since 1948. We will march to express our opposition to the British government’s ongoing complicity in Israel’s well-documented crimes against Palestinians including ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide. This year, we will also march to express our opposition to Tommy Robinson and his far right supporters who are mobilising on the same day.

In the wake of this week’s horrific antisemitic attack in Golders Green, the Palestine Coalition has issued a statement to challenge attempts by politicians and sections of the media to falsely characterise the marches for Palestinian rights as well as opposing calls for them to be suppressed. These calls rest on a dangerous attempt to conflate Jewish people with nuclear-armed, genocidal Israel and an equally dangerous conflation between peaceful political protest and unconnected violent acts.

With the ongoing horrific illegal aggression by nuclear-armed Israel against the people of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, together with the rising threat of the far right and the worsening attacks on our right to protest, this year’s commemoration of the Nakba has never been more important. Find out more details about the demonstration - which assembles at 12 noon on Exhibition Road on Saturday 16 May.