Trident policy could be challenged

Labour’s official policy of supporting the renewal of Trident could be challenged in future, Jeremy Corbyn said as he vowed to push for a “nuclear free world”.

Shadow defence secretary Clive Lewis has said he would not attempt to change the policy “as things stand”, but Mr Corbyn said he could not predict whether there would be an attempt to alter the prorenewal stance.

The Labour leader, a long- standing campaigner for unilateral nuclear disarmament, restated his opposition to the official party policy.

Mr Corbyn, who had previously said he would not press the nuclear button if he was prime minister, was again challenged about whether he would fire the weapon if he was in power.

“I never want to use a nuclear weapon,” he told the BBC.

Divisions over Trident have again been exposed at the Labour conference, with Mr Lewis reportedly punching a wall in frustration after a sec- tion of his speech in which he committed to maintaining the current pro-renewal policy was deleted on the orders of Mr Corbyn’s main aide Seumas Milne.

Mr Corbyn repeatedly stressed that a review of Labour’s position on defence issues, including Trident, was still ongoing and it remained open to the party’s conference to change the policy.

He told ITV News: “I cannot predict what will happen in the future, who will decide what they want to bring forward to conference.”