Party in chaos over leader’s plan to axe Trident

LABOUR was in chaos over its stance on Britain’s nuclear deterrent l ast night, after unions threw out Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to get the party to endorse scrapping Trident.

In a damaging blow to the leader, conference organisers rejected a bid to debate the issue this week, despite his call for an ‘open discussion’.

The snub came after strong opposition from trade union leaders, who say that scrapping the submarine-based weapons system would cost thousands of their members’ jobs in shipyards and the nuclear industry.

But Labour still looks set to abandon its formal support for Trident, which Mr Corbyn yesterday branded a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. The party’s deputy leader Tom Watson indicated that Labour MPs would be given a free vote in the Commons next year over whether to renew Trident – effectively ending decades of political consensus on the need for a nuclear deterrent.

The move comes amid infighting over the issue in the shadow cabinet. Several senior figures, including Mr Watson, shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle are unwilling to back Mr Corbyn’s unilateralist stance.

Mr Watson said: ‘We have very different views on Trident. We are just going to have to reach an accommodation on that – let’s have a national debate. It is likely to be a free vote.

‘The shadow cabinet hasn’t taken that decision yet, but that seems to be the way things

are unfolding.’ Former leadership contender Chuka Umunna last night said: ‘It’s not plausible for us as the opposition not to have a position on the defence of the realm … ultimately we’re going to have to have settled positions on things if people are to know what it is they are voting for … Frankly it’s not sustainable for different people in our leadership to be saying different things.’

Labour MP John Woodcock warned that voting against Trident next year would be a ‘futile unilateral gesture’, particularly as there is a clear Commons majority for renewal. Mr Corbyn, a vice-chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, yesterday insisted it would not be a ‘disaster’ if members of the shadow cabinet voted in different ways on the issue.

‘We are going to have to discuss it and debate it and come to a philosophical solution to it, but I understand colleagues’ views,’ he said. ‘I hope to persuade them that a nuclear-free world is a good thing, that fulfilling our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and promoting a nuclear weapons convention is a good thing. They are all signed up to multilateral disarmament, by the way.

‘There are many people, military thinkers, who are very concerned, indeed opposed to Trident, because they don’t see it as part of modern security or defence. They don’t see any situation in which Trident would become an option you would think about using. This is a weapon of mass destruction.’

In a swipe at the new leader, the powerful GMB union yesterday said Trident was ‘not an academic debate for the coffee shops of north London’.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, which has thousands of members in the defence industry, said: ‘I understand the moral case and the huge cost of replacing Trident … but the most important thing for us is jobs and the defence of communities.’

The Tories seized on Mr Corbyn’s remarks to repeat their claim that Labour is a threat to national security. Business Secretary Sajid Javid said: ‘The Labour leader confirmed that he would weaken our defences by scrapping our independent nuclear deterrent.’

‘Weapon of mass destruction’