AUGUST 6 is a poignant day. On this day in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima as the first atomic bomb was used as a weapon of war. A few days later, it was used again in Nagasaki.

The huge death toll from people being fried alive was compounded by death from cancers and the slow destruction of those who survived the initial attack. Others developed cancers later on and death was visited upon a whole generation by the two bombs.

The use of the atomic bomb set off the nuclear age as the United States expanded its nuclear arsenal. A few years later, the Soviet Union developed its own system, followed by others.

Britain, reeling from the economic destruction of World War II, tested its first atomic bomb in 1952. Clement Attlee, the prime minister, managed to expend, in complete secrecy, enough money to build an independent system. Not even the Cabinet was told, never mind Parliament or the people.

For two decades after the second world war there were atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, with the resultant fallout killing people in the Pacific and beyond.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has helped to stem the flow of nuclear weapons, which are restricted to the five declared nuclear weapons states (the US, Britain, France, Russia, China) and to India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, which are not treaty signatories.

The danger of a nuclear war is now greater than it has been for decades, as the Ukraine war drags on. Both Russia and Ukraine’s Nato backers have nuclear weapons at their disposal. Meanwhile, military spending is now rising around the world. 

Britain has already committed to increasing defence spending to at least 2.5 per cent of GDP. Globally the number of nuclear warheads is also rising.

In the case of the war in Ukraine we see conscripted soldiers on both sides being slaughtered, and more and more weapons being delivered, and fewer and fewer politicians anywhere even raising the possibility of ending this appalling war. The language of peace is absent and there are few efforts being made now to broker a discussion that could lead to a ceasefire.

Nuclear weapons can never bring peace or security, only the assurance of deaths of millions followed by global climate catastrophe, nuclear winter and famine.

If Britain wanted to be a global leader, it would sign the Global Nuclear Ban Treaty and make the case for world peace.

Those used in 1945 were very small compared to the warheads of today; isn’t it time to remember the deaths of 1945 and ensure Hiroshima is never repeated?

Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North.