Bill Kidd (SNP) MSP for Glasgow will speak on the possibility of getting an international treaty banning nuclear weapons at a public meeting in Victoria Halls on 15 March at 7:30pm. The meeting is organized by Helensburgh CND.
Bill Kidd is a member of the Council of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. In October Mr. Kidd met with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to discuss proposals to make nuclear weapons illegal. He will be attending an international conference at the United Nations in New York in May on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Kidd will speak on the topic of a world without nuclear weapons. He is active both within Scottish Parliament and internationally in campaigning against Trident and for a global ban on nuclear weapons. This year he will be going to New York to call for all countries with nuclear weapons to commit to abolish all nuclear weapons. One hundred ninety seven countries will be meeting at the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference to discuss progress on the Treaty’s agreement to achieve worldwide nuclear disarmament.
Helensburgh CND spokesperson Jeanne Brady said “We are looking forward to having Bill Kidd coming to Helensburgh to speak about the exciting possibility of an agreement on a global ban on nuclear weapons. When it signed on to the NPT forty years ago Britain and the other countries that have nuclear weapons promised they would pursue negotiations leading to multilateral disarmament in exchange for the countries that did not have nuclear weapons promising not to acquire them. Forty years later instead of seriously pursuing nuclear disarmament the UK and the other nuclear weapons states are planning to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. The problem with that is that some of the countries that promised not to acquire nuclear weapons are thinking ‘If they need the bomb we need it too’. That’s why we need a new agreement to abolish them – a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the Conventions banning landmines, and chemical and biological weapons. This is something everyone can agree on. It’s not unilateral nuclear disarmament. I hope local people will take advantage of this opportunity to come along and find out about the global movement to eliminate nuclear weapons. It is something that is important to everyone in this community.
“Many local people fear that getting rid of Trident would mean the loss of jobs. With unemployment high and massive cuts to public services anticipated that’s a genuine concern. But most people in Scotland and Scottish Parliament want rid of Trident. And most people agree that we would be more secure if all the nuclear weapons states disarmed. Disarmament is going to happen sooner or later. Instead of defending jobs that depend on threatening nuclear destruction we should begin figuring out how we can create jobs that meet real human needs in areas such as renewable energy.
