The new Prime Minister, Theresa May, will use her first appearance in the House of Commons since assuming office at 10, Downing Street to expose divisions in the Labour over Trident and warn that abandoning the nuclear deterrent would be “misplaced idealism”.
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The Government is set to vote tonight on whether we should be renewing the deterrent, which consists of four Vanguard submarines – each carrying Trident missiles – which have been patrolling the oceans since 1969.
During a debate in the Commons today, Prime Minister Theresa May claimed Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to maintaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent is “quite wrong”. “I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with worldwide relations”.
But a series of Labour MPs lined up to challenge him about his support for unilateral disarmament in the latest public sign of discontent over his leadership.
The decision on which contender gives way will be made once it is clear who has the most nominations from the party’s MPs and follows calls from senior figures for a “unity candidate” to stand in the contest.
Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland branded Mr Corbyn’s opposition “juvenile” and “narcissistic” and said shadow cabinet members who voted against Trident should resign and return to the backbenches because they would be voting against Labour Party policy.
“And if you can’t do that, return to the backbenches”.
The vote will decide whether to press ahead with the manufacture of the next generation of nuclear submarines, BBC reported.
The divide between pro- and anti-nuclear forces has always been a fault-line in the Labor Party.
“But what Labour’s front bench is now doing is not principled”.
He added that “we are not debating a nuclear deterrent but our continued possession of weapons of mass destruction, which are capable of killing one million people per warhead”.
Mr Corbyn had said: “I make it clear today that I would not take a decision that kills millions of people, I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with worldwide relations”. “I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with global relations”.
“Is she personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that could kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children?” asked the MP for East Lothian.
May replied without hesitation: “I have to say to the honorable gentleman, the whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it, unlike some suggestions that we could have a deterrent but not actually be willing to use it, which seem to come from the Labour party frontbench”.
May cited Russian aggression and the nuclear ambitions of North Korea as proof that “the nuclear threat has not gone away, if anything it has increased”.
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“If keeping and renewing our nuclear weapons is so vital to our national security and our safety, then does she accept the logic of that position must be that every other single country must seek to acquire nuclear weapons?”
