Multilateralist, respecting international law and learning from history

International security is a hot topic since Putin`s “Special Military Operation” launched against Ukraine a year ago. Most people recognise it for what it was, an invasion by a despot of questionable sanity. A wide debate has been prompted by Putin having “moved the goalposts of the conditions under which Russia would launch a first nuclear strike.”

The Lib Dem “Defence Team” has put together a motion which is an ultra-cautious approach to defence policy, probably not wishing to rock the middle-of-the-road approach thought to be necessary in order not to frighten off the soft conservative vote. But it is a knee-jerk reaction which cranks up the level of rhetoric. This is understandable, but highly dangerous, as it also cranks up the risks to the world.

With that in mind we have put forward an amendment to the motion which needs your support! It takes a more radical approach to weapons that are now illegal under international law as well as being inhuman and immoral.

The `KILL ZONE!`

I was fifteen in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis. My home, my school and our family business were within 3.7 miles of Waddington RAF station: home to Vulcan bombers which carried the British nuclear bombs. The 100% kill zone of a `modest` 1 megaton bomb is `at least 6 kilometres` – just over 3.7 miles. So, doubtless, my views of nuclear weapons were influenced by this proximity with death.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bertrand Russell wrote “Mankind is faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense”.

We have relied on luck for too long

We may need some UNCOMMON sense, however, if we are to avoid an “incident” obliterating humans and much other life from the Earth.
In the Cuban Crisis, Vasily Arkhipov, Chief of Staff of a Soviet Flotilla of four diesel submarines, was one of three keyholders for the nuclear weapons on the submarine B59. They were out of touch with Moscow. The sub`s captain and the other keyholder were going to activate their missiles. Arkhipov refused to use his key and, thereby, saved the world from Armageddon.

We have relied on luck too often for comfort.

Putin`s threats to use nuclear weapons were delivered in order to stop Western non-nuclear support for Ukraine, in fear of what could happen if we overstep a deliberately ambiguous line in the sand.

Evidence shows that reductions of nuclear weapons have only come about during negotiations; negotiations often spurred on by a response to a crisis like the Cuban missile crisis! Perhaps this Crisis can become an opportunity for movement.

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Those opposing our amendment refer to the UN Treaty “Unilateralist”, but a research briefing in the HoC Library tells us that the TPNW “is the first multilateral, legally binding, instrument for nuclear disarmament to have been negotiated in 20 years.”
The treaty tells us this directly. The paragraph we quote includes this sentence:
Signatories should immediately remove [weapons] from operational status, and destroy them as soon as possible, but not later than a deadline to be determined by the first meeting of States Parties.

In other words, the TPNW IS multilateral. I believe the likelihood of success of such negotiations would be strengthened by at least one Nuclear State deciding to sign the Treaty.

We must `choose a direction of travel`. Sadly, the Lib Dem motion on the Agenda for York is static in this regard and is what the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) calls a “wringing of hands”.

Liberals can and should do better. We must say, loud and clear, that WE are ready to move the process of nuclear disarmament forwards.

We specify in the amendment that signing the Treaty should happen in the lifetime of the next Parliament after the General Election. No Tory government would think this is a good idea.

However, it`s clear the General Election will have a significant effect upon the political makeup of Parliament. Therefore, we should be in the vanguard of change, as Liberals always are.

Let`s work with the United Nations

UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres said recently that:

As a global family, we can no longer allow the cloud of nuclear conflict to shadow our work to spur development, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to lift this cloud for good.

Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the UN and was the General Assembly`s first resolution of 1946. The UN TPNW has been signed by eighty-six countries and ratified by sixty-six.

The amendment is based upon Liberal Values of internationalism, human rights, the pursuit of peace, and the rule of law, as well as our generational commitment to protect the planet, its ecosystem and all its peoples.

So, register for the Conference, actual or online, and vote for the amendment supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!

* Keith Melton was the founding Chair of the Green Liberal Democrats back in 1988 when the party was formed and has recently been elected to the Chair again in 2020. During the intervening period he founded the Institute for Sustainable Development in Business at Nottingham Trent University and has lectured widely on environmental issues both in the UK and internationally.

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27 Comments

  • Mick Taylor 13th Mar '23 - 5:02pm

    As a pacifist unilateralist, I have yet to be allowed to propose or vote for an amendment to a motion on nuclear weapons that actually supports getting rid of the bomb. Whilst we should of course support Keith’s amendment, it is far from putting the party into the camp of those wishing to rid the world of nuclear bombs.
    It is only when someone, anyone from the nuclear club takes the first step towards a real process of disarmament by abandoning nuclear bombs that we have any hope of disarmament at all.
    The party seems, sadly, to be like St Francis. “Make me chaste Lord, but not yet”

  • Any trust we might have had in Putin’s word has long gone. China might temper his words but his mind is set on a love affair with his new nuclear weapons. So be very aware of how the Tories and their media friends would depict us.

  • Mel Borthwaite 13th Mar '23 - 6:33pm

    @Tim Rogers
    With the greatest of respect, your comment could be interpreted as ‘forget about your principles, think of the electoral consequences…’
    I, personally, am more concerned about the Party standing on a manifesto I believe in – whatever the electoral consequences – than I am about us achieving electoral success by betraying our principles. It is high time the Liberal Democrats took a unilateralist position and was prepared to defend it forcefully on moral, economic and defence grounds.

  • Simon McGrath 13th Mar '23 - 7:05pm

    Would not ‘lets give up our nuclear weapons and put our trust in the US Government ‘ not be a better heading for this article ?

  • Mick Taylor 13th Mar '23 - 7:52pm

    Where have you been the last 50 years Simon McGrath. Where do you think we get the nuclear bombs from and do you really believe we would use them without US sanction?
    On the main point. Most of Nato relies on the US already and none of them are lining up to get nuclear weapons. Why is Britain so special and different that we have to be in the nuclear club?
    Get real. Nuclear weapons do not protect us, they put us all at risk and the sooner we get rid of them the better. Otherwise the slogan better dead than red will become a self fulfilling prophecy

  • While accepting and acknowledging all the good Lib Dems posting here (and I sincerely believe they are all good Lib Dems posting here), we have to be careful not to allow our passion to achieve a safer world through the reduction and if possible elimination of nuclear weapons from our planet, to obscure our acceptance of a few facts.

    1) Mick says “It is only when someone, anyone from the nuclear club takes the first step towards a real process of disarmament by abandoning nuclear bombs that we have any hope of disarmament at all.”

    However, we all know that Ukraine abandoning nuclear bombs way back in 1994, and we all know where that has got them.

    2) Mel says “, personally, am more concerned about the Party standing on a manifesto I believe in – whatever the electoral consequences – than I am about us achieving electoral success by betraying our principles.”

    The problem with this absolutist position is that it gives no room for that key word in our Preamble – Balance. We can be perfect absolutists who achieve nothing (just like the numerous Communist factions in the UK) or pragmatists who acknowledge that a) We are rarely absolutely right even when we believe we are and b) we can move things gradually in the right direction if we win. but we will achieve nothing if we lose.

  • Lorenzo Cherin 14th Mar '23 - 11:30am

    Excellent commentary as usual from David Evans.

    I can’t think of something more absurd, when Putin targets a small neighbour without nuclear capability, than joining Ukranians in being without such a defence.

    The article says it is for multiulateralism. I read it as not.

    We must stop the hypocrisy. We rely on the US. We ought to play our part until these awful weapons are negotiated into the dustbin of history, in cooperation with others.

  • I will be 73 on Good Friday. Throughout my life there has been fine talk about multilateral disarmament. Instead the nuclear club has grown.
    There is no plan for multilateral disarmament. There have been some reductions in nuclear arsenals, but Russia, the USA and China have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. While these weapons exist, there is a risk that some one will use them.
    Will all those who insist we must have a nuclear bomb please explain why the majority of countries, including the vast majority of European Nato members, neither have the bomb or are seeking to get it?
    The UK having nuclear weapons is just another example of British exceptionalism. The UK is wholly dependent on the USA to obtain these weapons and would never use them without the approval of the US President. Is it so important to carry a bigger stick than anyone else just because we’re British?
    Lorenzo you think the amendment is unilateralist, Unilateralism means giving up the bomb without any reciprocal gestures from anyone else.
    David Evans, have you considered the very real possibility that Putin would have struck first and destroyed both Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal and most of the Ukraine.
    Ukraine they decided not to take over what was left of the USSRs nuclear arsenal. Hardly the same as say the UK or France giving up the nuclear bomb that they have had for many years.

  • Jenny Barnes 14th Mar '23 - 4:15pm
  • I personally support unilateral nuclear disarmament, however in the absence of movement in that direction by the Party I actually support the motion being brought to Conference.

    Our current policy of “medium readiness” is the worst of both worlds, since it cannot be guaranteed to function as an effective deterrent yet still invites an early strike to wipe out the capability before it is deployed. It also requires the escalatory step of moving it to high readiness at times of tension.

    If we are going to have nuclear weapons, they need to be at high readiness at all times to function as a deterrent.

  • Lorenzo Cherin 14th Mar '23 - 4:59pm

    Mick, I admire your view, as a Quaker individual, but yours cannot be correct for a major country.

    Not exceptionalism, merely acceptance of responsibility as the founders of the modern democratic post world war two free world. Long may our role be this way.

    I favour real efforts one day again, post the current Russian and Chinese leaders.

  • Lorenzo Cherin 14th Mar '23 - 5:01pm

    We should be a full member of the inner circle , Security Council, etc. If not, the country and free world is poorer.

  • I must confess I’m a tad older than Mick Taylor (though feel, as I hope does Mick, just a tad over 21). To coin a phrase, ‘ I agree with Mick’.

    I recall Jo Grimond on ‘so called independent nuclear deterrents’. David Steel (Journal of Liberal History, Autumn, 2013) described Jo’s view in the 1959 election. It’s still good enough for me.

    “Jo Grimond showed the same attitude to imperial pretensions on the issue of Britain acquiring an independent nuclear deterrent. He was opposed to the Polaris project and later the Trident one believing them to be ‘unnecessary, dangerous and expensive’ and argued that they made little additional contribution to that of the West as a whole and that they were maintained for ‘out of date reasons of national prestige’.

    ‘We of the Liberal Party say that Britain should not make its own nuclear deterrent. We believe the nuclear deterrent should be held by the West on behalf of the West as a whole and not by individual countries.’ He was not a unilateralist but wanted to limit our nuclear participation to co-operation within NATO, not attempting to run our own independent deterrent: ‘Must we not abandon many of our ideas about sovereignty and pool much of our resources and our arms ?”

    With respect Lorenzo, the question I must put is do you not regard Germany, Brazil (or Italy ?) as ‘major countries’, and should they have nuclear weapons ? Liberal Imperialism expired before WW1.

  • David Evans 14th Mar '23 - 7:52pm

    Mick, indeed I have considered it, but my post was in answer to your scenario that “It is only when someone, anyone from the nuclear club takes the first step towards a real process of disarmament by abandoning nuclear bombs that we have any hope of disarmament at all.”

    Ukraine has tried it. Russia invaded. No-one else has disarmed. With hundreds of people dying on both sides every day, what hope does your scenario have now?

    As for your final paragraph,what the Ukranians did was exactly what you suggested in your scenario. Claiming France or Britain doing it would be somehow different does sound a bit like Western exceptionalism doesn’t it.

  • Chris Moore 15th Mar '23 - 8:01am

    Every year that nuclear weapons exist, there is a small probability that they will be used.

    Over a long enough time scale, the chance they are used tends to 100%.

    So either the world disarms, or there will be a nuclear war at some point.

    We have to hope that said war doesn’t wipe out humanity and that then there will be serious impetus to get rid of nuclear weapons, before another war that does.

    Each extra country that has nuclear weapons increases the probability of a human or systems error or a strike to protect national interests.

    So taking Britain out of the equation would be a small step forward.

    Electorally negative, sadly.

  • Lorenzo Cherin 15th Mar '23 - 9:21am

    David, ie Raw, I agree with our other David.

    And I do not think there is any real similarity between the UK and countries alluded to on international defence.

    Brazil is not remotely historically significant with regard to power, nor on defence is that country now as of this issue.

    Germany and Italy have troubled history . Until the UK can be sure that Russia and China are open to moves, we ought to keep things as now.

    I see no reason why the situation might not change years from now. Russia and China need Western determination that comes from group action. We are in such a group.

  • Hi Martin,

    it’s refreshing to disagree with you on a subject other than the party’s stance on Europe’s impact on its electoral possibilities.

    Are you saying France or the UK would be more likely to be invaded (coerced?) by Russia, if they disarmed unilaterally?

    I don’t think we are any more vulnerable here in Spain to Russian invasion/coercion than when I’m in the UK.

    Think about the UK nuclear deterrent from the point of view of the average Spaniard: having seen many clips of wild jingoistic Brexiteers on Spanish TV for the last few years, the thought of the UK having nuclear weapons is in no way reassuring. The British may see themselves as sober and honest and reliable: surprisingly, this is not a point of view shared by many Spaniards. (Or indeed myself.)

    I hope the failure to detect extra-terrestial life is due to not having been at the task for a very long time and the universe not being a small place to search.

    But we do agree on the main point that human existence on earth is time-limited, if we don’t get rid of the bloody things. Multi-laterally or uni-laterally. let’s get on with it!

  • I agree with Mick. I cannot agree Lorenzo’s logic which is a recipe for nuclear proliferation as he argues that countries are safer if they possess nuclear weapons. That way there will be proliferation followed by much increased risks of accidental or intentional detonation.
    The UK has already reduced its conventional forces and will do so further to pay for the new Trident system. That is in itself a dangerous defence doctrine. 88 countries have signed the UN Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. As an internationalist party who believes in international law we should do all we can to further that Treaty. In the end global nuclear disarmament is the only rational way forward. The UK being willing to give up its nuclear weapons would be a small step in the right direction. Further nuclear rearmament is bound to shorten the odds on MAD Armageddon dramatically.

  • Chris Moore 15th Mar '23 - 2:44pm

    Hello Martin,

    In view of Britain’s unreliability as an ally to Europe would a German independent nuclear deterrent improve the EU’s security?

    Would this improve world security?

  • Jenny Barnes 15th Mar '23 - 4:08pm

    “the evolution of intelligence is inevitably self destructive.” Possibly because of climate change, burning fossil fuels, rather than nuclear destruction, but even still, there ought to be many radio emitting civilisations that existed before us. Or maybe we are first/ unique?

  • Nonconformistradical 15th Mar '23 - 4:34pm

    @Martin
    Even if they’d wiped themselves out their radio signals already transmitted might still be wending their way across the universe.

  • Peter Hirst 20th Mar '23 - 2:14pm

    The question is how can we as a political party best promote the abandonment of all nuclear weapons while keeping the world free from their use. We are a campaigning party and so should vote for measures that decrease the likelihood of their use. Having a credible convential military force is a far more effecive deterrent than having a nuclear deterrent.

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