Councillors join GMB in defence conference

LABOUR councillors have lined up to attend a defence workers conference designed to protest Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Trident push.

The GMB union is pushing ahead with the event, which could be held in Scotland, despite the Labour leader’s proposal to save thousands of defence jobs by keeping the submarines and sending them to sea without nuclear warheads.

A source said: “Labour councillors are keen to have their voice heard as well.

“They warn it is not just workers who would be affected if all jobs were lost, it is entire communities.”

Mr Corbyn’s proposal of “subs with no nukes” has been denounced as “ill-informed” by one of his own former shadow defence ministers.

Other Labour MPs also questioned whether the policy would breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK supports.

The row came as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that he hoped the final Commons vote on renewing Trident would be “not be too long” away.

Kevan Jones, who quit the Labour frontbench after the pro-Trident Maria Eagle was sacked as shadow defence secretary, warned that the UK’s nuclear capability could not be turned “on and off like a tap”.

His attack came as Ms Eagle’s replacement, the unilateralist Emily Thornberry, lined up against Mr Fallon in the Commons for the first time.

At the weekend Ms Thornberry confirmed her party is considering the “Japanese option” – retaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons without actually possessing them.

Last week the GMB warned that the union would not go “quietly into the night” over Trident.

Details of the ‘conference of the workers’ are expected to be announced later this week.