Labour’s position on nuclear deterrent

I LISTENED with interest and indeed horror, to the shadow Armed Forces minister and Plymouth MP Luke Pollard on Sky News this morning, giving his account as to why it was necessary for Labour to commit to the renewal of the so-called Trident Nuclear deterrent.

His words were frightening as much as they were ignorantly stupid, speaking as he did of the prospect of a “battlefield nuclear war” using “smaller” nuclear weapons! The insanity of this beggars belief.

The world today is standing on a most dangerous precipice. Wars are raging across the globe. From the Middle East, to Africa as well as on our own doorstep in Europe. The possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent has not prevented one of these conflicts from taking place.

Why? Because the nuclear deterrent is a myth. It is a weapon that neither deters or that any sane thinking person could ever use, unless of course they were intent on wiping civilisation from Planet Earth!

Of course, those pro-nuclear bomb protagonists, such as Luke Pollard, would have us believe that possessing a nuclear bomb has been the key factor in enabling peace and national security. Why then, out of the 195 countries in the world, are nuclear weapons the preserve of only nine? Surely if world peace relies so heavily on the possession of nuclear weapons then all countries should have them?

Among the many questions put to Mr Pollard this morning, one he was not asked was, “Is there any scenario in which you think it justifiable to use a nuclear bomb?” I would dearly love to know his answer. Surely, even Luke Pollard must have learnt the lessons of the barbaric devastation and consequences of dropping a nuclear device on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945? The immediate and horrific deaths of over 250,000 thousand people and the long-term effects, still being suffered to this very day by the causes of radiation?

A war involving the use of nuclear weapons will end civilisation as we know it. This is not some game that one plays on an X box. The fallout alone from a nuclear explosion knows no boundaries. We are talking here of one bomb alone having the capacity of 1.2 megatons, making it 60 times more powerful than the bomb that killed those poor, innocent and defenceless people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

At the last general election, Mr Pollard and his fellow Labour MPs, including his leader Keir Stammer, were elected on a Labour Party manifesto that the Socialist Labour Party supported, which pledged to phase out our nuclear weapons in order to place more emphasis on conventional forms of defence.

Of course, we all know how many promises and pledges Keir Starmer made then which he has since distanced himself from now. This is yet another example. At a time when world leaders should be applying all of the intelligence they can muster in a call for peace, this is the moment that Keir Starmer and his fellow parrots choose to speak of making war more of a possibility by the insanity of increasing our nuclear arsenal.

In conclusion, it will not be long before the British people have an opportunity to elect their MP for the next parliamentary term.

I believe defence, national security, the talk of war and peace will prove to be a central feature of the political debate.

I would urge people to read what the Socialist Labour Party has to say on these and that of many other matters. For they are the only party speaking with the intelligence to deal with the important issues of today that are affecting our frightened and stricken world.

Alan Lemin Millbrook, Cornwall