Critics argue that Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons is immoral, expensive and outdated, a product of the Cold War that has no use in the fight against modern threats such as the Islamic State (ISIS) group.
Advertisement
Britain is one of only 3 nuclear-armed North Atlantic Treaty Organisation nations, along with the United States and France, and has had a continuous at-sea deterrent since 1969 – meaning one of its submarines is always deployed somewhere in the world.
Mr Pugh, Southport’s Lib Dem MP, told Visiter.co.uk that he meant to vote against renewal.
Mr Watson acknowledged the vote was “partisan political game-playing” but described abstaining as an “abdication of responsibility” as Labour splits came to the fore. We need a 21st-century approach to our security needs.
The existing party policy remains in favour of renewing Trident as a review set up by Corbyn, a longstanding unilateralist, is yet to report. Cost aside, I am not a unilateralist but I can not support a decision for a like for like replacement without reference to on-going negotiations on the general worldwide scaling down of these weapons.
Theresa May is expected to tell MPs as she opens the debate, which is expected to last nearly seven hours, that no one can say for certain that Britain will not face a situation where the United Kingdom would need to use nuclear weapons.
Political divisions about whether to replace the Trident submarines have raised questions about Britain’s standing as a world power, amplified by a vote to leave the European Union.
I support that. But those MPs who vote against Trident should be in no doubt that they are voting to put tens of thousands of defence engineers out of work, many of them members of Unite and the GMB.
“I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate to go about dealing with global relations”.
But the shadow Commons leader, Newport West MP Paul Flynn, who is against the nuclear deterrent, said he believes the vote is a “cynical bear trap” by the Tories created to damage Labour.
“Once nuclear weapons have been given up it is nearly impossible to get them back – and the process of creating a new deterrent may take decades”.
Despite strong opposition from the Scottish National Party and some Labour Party members, lawmakers are likely to back renewal.
SNP MP Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) said that 58 of Scotland’s 59 MPs will be voting against renewal.
In a statement to the Telegraph, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that a vote to renew Trident will show that despite the Brexit vote “we are certainly not turning our back on the security of Europe and the rest of the world”. We can not outsource the grave responsibility we shoulder for keeping our people safe.
Advertisement
Writing on the Labour List website he said Monday “is the day that Labour, for all its current troubles, can fulfil its manifesto promise to maintain ‘a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent'”.
