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Supporters apparently are not deterred by the prospect that the nuclear weapons ban treaty may be ignored by the countries that possess all the world’s nuclear weapons. After all, 70 years of hollow promises of nuclear disarmament have accustomed them to play the long game. They are gambling that the new treaty will lead to the erosion of legitimacy for nuclear weapons.

At a time when many people feel that organizations supporting globalization, such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization, and the European Parliament, ignore the needs of ordinary people, the UN, instead, is placing the protection and well-being of people at the very heart of this treaty. Indeed, it was inspired by UN-sponsored conferences beginning in 2013 to consider the harm to individuals and to highlight the humanitarian catastrophes resulting from the use of nuclear weapons.

The new treaty creates space and means for a creative new disarmament politics based on law and ethics and democracy that goes beyond well-trodden debates on the dangers and costs of nuclear weapons and traditional practices of arms control based on step-by-step reductions that limit only the size of arsenals.

In the United Kingdom, a socialist with a maximalist political strategy is a hair’s breadth away from 10 Downing. Might disarmament advocates learn something from Jeremy Corbyn about how to achieve goals that have long seemed out of reach?