Labour sources have said they believe 138 Labour MPs voted for the motion, 48 against, with 45 not present, meaning around 60 per cent of all Labour MPs voted with the government for Trident renewal.
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“The Government’s policy is to retain the Trident continuous at sea nuclear deterrent to provide the ultimate guarantee of our safety and build the new fleet of four Successor Ballistic Missile Submarines – securing thousands of highly-skilled engineering jobs in the UK”.
The vote paves the way towards building four replacement submarines which will come into service in the early 2030s.
Defence Minister Michael Fallon said renewing the nuclear fleet will remind the world that, despite leaving the EU, Britain still matters to the rest of the world.
The issue is highly controversial in the Labour Party as, although it is current Labour Party policy to endorse the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is strongly opposed to renewal.
Around 60 percent of its MPs did not support leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opinion and voted in favor of the nuclear program.
“It is ridiculous that when there is a clear Labour policy on this issue no one is sure whether our Shadow Defence team and the leader of our party will vote for, against or abstain”.
The 472 to 117 vote in the House of Commons last evening marked the first major victory for Theresa May as Prime Minister.
May said: “Some people suggest to us that we should actually be removing our nuclear deterrent. Is she personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that can kill a hundred thousand innocent men, women and children?”
A poll, carried out by Survation in 2015, showed that 47.2% of Scottish people opposed a new generation of nuclear weapons being based on the River Clyde.
The debate yesterday, however, illustrated not merely the wrong conclusion of Mr Corbyn and the Scottish National Party, but their naivete. “I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with worldwide relations”. “Do these weapons of mass destruction, for that is what they are, act as deterrents to what we face and is that deterrent credible?”
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Mr Corbyn reiterated his opposition to the potential use of the weapons – one of the key elements of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. It was Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labor government that developed atomic weapons in the years following World War II, making Britain the world’s third nuclear-armed state after the United States and the Soviet Union.
