9th August 2025
In a debate in the House of Commons in 2016, on the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine capability, then Prime Minister, Theresa May, was asked point blank if she would be prepared to use these weapons of mass destruction. Her equally blunt response was that yes, she would, on the basis that there is no point in having a deterrent unless you are prepared to use it. There is an inexorable logic to May’s position, if you believe that possessing nuclear weapons has a deterrent effect.
There is no evidence that nuclear weapons do deter, any more than there is any absolute evidence that they do not. So the real motivation behind whatever position is taken on the issue has to be a mix of the political, the moral and the humanitarian.
The war crimes committed by the United States of America, in dropping nuclear bombs upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, have never been acknowledged as war crimes. History, written by the victors as ever, records the use of nuclear weapons as having brought an end to the war in the Far East more quickly. That at least is the generally accepted wisdom. The fact that the war in the Far East was all but over, and the Japanese were seeking mediation through the Soviet Union to end the war, an outcome that the United States could not countenance, finds little airspace.
This poem was written in 2015 on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the bombings. Then, as now with the eightieth anniversary, Hiroshima gained much news coverage, due to being the first, while Nagasaki received less attention, hence the subject of the poem.
Not long after writing this poem I read the first hand account, Hiroshima by John Hersey, first published in the New Yorker in August 1946 and now published as a Penguin paperback. It is probably the most harrowing 100 pages of journalism you are ever likely to read.
The debate about Trident is not the major political fault line in 2025 that it was in 2016. The Tories, and no doubt Reform, are emphatic in their defence of Britain retaining nuclear weapons. In the debate in 2016 then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was categorical in his opposition to the recommissioning of Trident and vowed never, under any circumstances, to resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
Current Labour leader, Kier Starmer, has made no such commitment. On the contrary, Starmer actively commits to and embraces Britain’s role as part of the NATO war machine.
The possession of nuclear weapons and membership of NATO are subjects on which we all must all take a stand, a stand in opposition to either.
Don’t Leave Nagasaki
Little Boy pushed his way to the front,
Had to be first in the queue.
Fat Man groaned as the boy shoved past,
‘Hey son, I was there too.’
In the cold war light the atomic flash
Turned people to shadows on the floor,
Shedding thousands of tears in the eighty years,
Since opening the nuclear door.
Don’t leave Nagasaki burning
With the shame of this regret
Don’t leave Nagasaki wondering
Why no justice yet?
At The Hague they try war criminals
So the world can understand,
But there is no space to try the case
Of the melting of Japan.
The United States stands for freedom,
The United States stands for law.
Is there anyone outside of the United States
Who believes that, anymore?
Don’t leave Nagasaki burning
With the burden of this war crime.
Don’t leave Nagasaki thinking
That there could even be a next time.
Steve Bishop
Note
Little Boy was the name given to the atomic bomb the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. Fat Man was the name given to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later, on 9th August 1945. Over 200,000 people died as a result of the bombings. Tens of thousands more have died subsequently from burns and radiation.
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