Trident, Red Ed and the danger to Britain

LABOUR spent yesterday feigning outrage at the Tory defence secretary Michael Fallon over his warning that, having ‘stabbed his brother in the back’ to win his party’s leadership, Ed Miliband might now betray his country in order to get into Downing Street.

According to Red Ed, Mr Fallon should be ‘ashamed’ of himself for ‘descending into the gutter’ in the Trident debate.

But all this concocted fury from a man who DID stab his brother in the back could not mask one simple fact: Labour has yet to categorically match the Tory commitment to replace all four of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines – the minimum that defence chiefs say is needed in an ever more volatile world.

The reasons for this are two-fold: with as many as three- quarters of Labour election candidates opposed to Trident, he does not want to pledge something he could never get past his own MPs. And, as Mr Fallon pointed out, Mr Miliband cynically continues to eye a post-election pact with the SNP – who yesterday emphasised that their opposition to Trident remains a ‘red-line issue – to put him into No10.

Hence Labour’s weasel-worded ‘pledge’ to renew Trident but with a ‘review’ into the number of submarines required – leaving wriggle room for a grubby deal.

The frightening truth is that a weak Prime Minister Miliband – in hock to the even more Left-wing SNP, and struggling to command the support of his party on Trident – would be a grave threat to national security.

And Mr Fallon? How refreshing, in this sterile, listless election campaign, to find a Tory Cabinet minister speaking with genuine passion. With nearly a month until polling day, his colleagues need to follow his lead urgently.