MEMBERS of the anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares will celebrate the entry into force of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on January 22 with banner drops, billboards and projections on buildings, and bell ringing in town centres across the UK.

In Edinburgh, messages will be projected on city centre buildings with billboards proclaiming “UN outlaws nuclear weapons. Time for a clean break”, with a variation asking “What about Scotland?” depicting Nicola Sturgeon alongside her words: “No ifs, no buts, no nuclear weapons on the Clyde, or anywhere.”

The group said that messages will appear in other cities around the UK in the coming weeks.

The treaty was adopted by the United Nations in July 2017 with the support of 122 member states.

With Honduras’s ratification on October 24, 2020, the TPNW acquired the 50 ratifications needed for it to enter into force and become international law after 90 days.

Founder of the group, Angie Zelter, said: “After decades of nuclear resisters sitting on cold wet roads, swimming freezing lochs, being dragged through courts and thrown into police cells and prisons, today we are welcoming the arrival of the nuclear weapons ban treaty. We have argued many times in court that nuclear weapons are immoral and illegal because any use of these terrible weapons would cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe.

“The entry into force of the ban treaty signals a massive change globally, recognising that nuclear weapons are one of the greatest threats to humanity.”