Atiyah and Higgs call for end to UK nuclear weapons

Former president of the Royal Society Michael Atiyah and Nobel laureate Peter Higgs are among a group of scientists and celebrities who have called on the UK government to decommission all of its nuclear weapons.

The call came in a letter to The Observer newspaper, published on 11 April. The letter said that the UK’s use of a nuclear deterrent encourages others to seek to obtain nuclear weapons, makes the nation a “target for the disaffected”, and diverts resources and attention from the “most urgent security problems”, which it says include climate and environmental destruction. 

The letter urges the UK to become the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to give up its nuclear weapons, “transforming the nuclear club from within”.