How the Next UK Government Could Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War

In the December 2023 issue of Arms Control Today, VCDNP Research Associate Louis Reitmann discusses ways the UK could reform its nuclear weapons policy and reinvigorate its global leadership role in nuclear risk reduction and disarmament.

Under the Johnson government, the UK garnered criticism for raising the limit on its nuclear stockpile and reducing arsenal transparency.

Mr. Reitmann looks towards the upcoming UK general election and a possible win by the Labour Party and how a Labour government could take meaningful yet realistic action despite the party's difficult relationship with the nuclear weapons issue.

Polling at 47%, the Labour Party has recently been as popular as the Conservative Party was when former Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a landslide victory in 2019. With a Labour win looking more likely than it has in over 10 years, Mr. Reitmann argues that the party should overcome its internal divisions between supporters of the nuclear arsenal and a vocal pro-disarmament wing and take a more balanced, results-oriented approach.

“Labour has to move beyond the limits of its internal debate, which has long been defined by an imagined binary choice between maintaining the arsenal as it is and complete nuclear disarmament, when in reality there are many options in between.”

Mr. Reitmann recommends seven concrete measures to strengthen the UK’s recognition as a role model among the five nuclear-weapon States. They include reinstating stockpile reductions and arsenal transparency, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national defence planning, and normalising relations with States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).