CAMPAIGNERS from across Britain made renewed calls for nuclear weapons divestment yesterday after the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was ratified by a 50th country. 

On Saturday evening the UN announced that Honduras had joined the list of countries backing the treaty, meaning the ban will come into force within 90 days.

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will enter into international legal force on January 22 next year, with the production, use and stockpiling now banned.

Activists declared this a “major step” towards the elimination of the bombs, despite nuclear-armed states not having backed the treaty. 

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Kate Hudson said: “We now hold our key goal to be UK support for this treaty. 

“Successive governments have claimed to back the aim of a world without nuclear weapons, but they have failed to even engage with the process that has led to this treaty. 

“In these dangerous times, when our resources need to go to ensure genuine security: from climate change, from pandemic threats, our government must rethink security and join the global majority for nuclear abolition.”

Founding president of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Dr Rebecca Johnson said that the ban was “the culmination of 75 years of humanitarian activism.”

She added: “Our task now is to bring all the nuclear-armed and dependent countries into working with the non-nuclear majority to eliminate existing arsenals and universalise, implement and verify the Nuclear Ban Treaty.”

Representatives in Scotland have also called for fresh action, with ICAN’s Janet Fenton saying that there is a desire for “a Scotland that can contribute to international peace and justice, rather than being a launch pad for waging war.”

Activist network Don’t Bank on the Bomb was among those to speak out, highlighting the £6 billion invested in companies making nuclear weapons and their delivery systems by Scots banks, public bodies and pension funds. 

Linda Pearson of the network said: “When the nuclear ban treaty enters into force, these investors will be profiting from the production of weapons that are prohibited by international humanitarian law. 

“These investments are simply unethical and as more and more states implement the provisions of the treaty, there’s a risk that they will become stranded assets.”