The SNP, Green Party, Plaid Cymru and some Labour MPs oppose Trident, but a majority of Tory and Labour MPs are expected to vote in favour of renewing Britain’s nuclear submarines based at Faslane, Scotland.
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Asking for the fleet to removed from Scotland, the MPs said its continuing presence there would be another reason to seek a second independence referendum.
The motion is nearly certain to pass, as many Labour lawmakers are expected to back the Conservative government despite the opposition of their leader Jeremy Corbyn, and members of the Scottish National Party (SNP).
“Whatever you may hear from the opposition frontbench, it is Labour party policy to maintain a nuclear deterrent”.
“What this country needs to do is to recognise that it faces a variety of threats and to ensure we have the capabilities that are necessary and appropriate to deal with each of those threats”, May said before the vote to approve the manufacture of four new nuclear-armed submarines.
Challenged in the Commons on whether she would be prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that could kill thousands of “innocent men, women and children”, Mrs May firmly replied: “Yes”.
Caroline Flint, Labour MP for Don Valley, said that “as a nuclear deterrent country”, Britain had been “able to influence the reduction of many, many, many nuclear warheads around the world”.
JUST one of Gwent’s MPs voted against plans to renew the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent in Parliament yesterday.
The SNP’s Westminster leader said the Scottish people are being ignored by the UK Government, as he insisted renewing Trident is not what constituents want. Earlier on Monday, the security think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) issued a report which said that Russian Federation is “the primary source of potential nuclear risk to the UK, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future”.
But May knew that the Labour leader was prepared to state his position, which is the opposite of hers. “I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to deal with global relations”.
He was heckled when he said he was voting against renewal – against Labour Party policy – and was accused of helping “the country’s enemies”.
Corbyn, a lifelong campaigner against nuclear weapons, said he refused to take a decision that “kills millions of innocent people”.
Tom Blenkinsop, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, has announced he will vote for the creation of a new generation of Trident submarines.
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Little more than five minutes had passed before a Labour MP (John Woodock, Barrow and Furness) leapt up to denounce the anti-Trident stance of his leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
