Proof he wanted to axe all spending on arms

IN UNDER a fortnight’s time, Jeremy Corbyn could be sitting in Downing Street writing instructions for the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines and making his first overtures as Prime Minister to Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.

The Labour leader has in recent months been evasive about whether he would ever authorise a nuclear attack.

But his position was clear when he was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group in the 1980s.

Newly-obtained papers from the group show that Mr Corbyn called for a ‘massive reduction’ in the UK’s defence spending and accused the US of being a ‘vast world empire’ that organised ‘terrorist attacks’ and treated the UK like an ‘aircraft carrier’.

Mr Corbyn, a secretary of the group, also described the principle of nuclear deterrence as ‘discredited’ and doubted whether a Labour Prime Minister would ever use the weapons.

The prospect of Mr Corbyn – a longstanding critic of Nato – becoming Prime Minister is regarded with alarm in both the military alliance and in Washington. In one paper from the 1980s, a submission for the Labour Policy Review on defence, Mr Corbyn called for ‘a peace policy that removes all nuclear weapons and bases from this country and cuts all arms spending to free resources for a different world role and sociallyuseful production’.

The cache of papers also reveals that after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 – which signalled the end of the Cold War – the group hatched plans to contact Left-wing groups behind the Iron Curtain as part of a ‘nonalignment’ campaign to leave Nato. In 1990, minutes of a Socialist Campaign Group committee meeting authored by Corbyn show that he agreed ‘a letter to be sent to socialist groups in Eastern Europe containing our aims and objectives… on the Campaign for Non-Alignment’.

The committee also suggested that ‘if any Socialist Campaign Group members are in Eastern Europe, and it would be useful for groups to meet ... the Socialist Campaign Group will try and meet requests’. Asked in 2015 whether he would ever use nuclear weapons, Mr Corbyn said ‘No’, adding: ‘I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons.

‘I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible’. However, the party’s position has since shifted to making a decision only after consultation with Cabinet, Parliament and the ‘wider community’.