Now they have ‘banned the bomb’, what next?

My Baldric style cunning plan has nose-dived. My intention was to take advantage of getting the vaccination earlier through being over 80, and nip out to Faslane for a showdown with the nuclear criminals on 22 January – the day when we finally do “ban the bomb”. So I was going to blockade the base, and get arrested. The way one does.

But now it’s full lockdown, so the game’s a bogey. How frustrating is that? The most momentous event takes place –and it will pass unremarked. Nuclear weapons will be internationally outlawed, but we will just carry on as usual.

Like millions of others, I’ve spent a lifetime campaigning to “ban the bomb” and here they go and do exactly that. But the UK ignores this, and I can’t even demonstrate my anger.

For Scotland this is the crucial issue par excellence. Scots law has always prided itself on being distinctive, and this is its chance to prove it is. It is inconceivable that the Scottish legal establishment should simply ignore a ruling of the United Nations, the highest international legal authority.

It is vital to grasp that this Treaty is unique. It is the Charter of the Victims (ie you and me) because it is focused on the humanitarian conse - quences of the use of nucle - ar weapons, and does not get sidetracked into discussing “deterrence” , or the imagined advantages of nuclear weapons. Previous agreements were deals among the members of the exclusive Big Boys’ Nuclear Club.

This legal ruling has an impact not only on the highest levels of law, but at the lowest, and must affect the way ordinary policing of the nuclear base is conducted. The police simply cannot go on arresting people who are upholding international law, charge them with Breach of the Peace and imprison them. They must decide, which side are they on – are they upholding international law, or is it a case of my country right or wrong?

BRIAN M QUAIL Hyndland Avenue, Glasgow