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UK’s Liberal Democrats developing anti nuclear weapons policy

LibDems could scrap all nuclear weapons, says Hughes, Ekklesia By staff writers26 Apr 2010, Senior Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes has said today (26 April) that his party may choose to decommission all the UK government’s nuclear weapons if they take power.

His comments display a different emphasis to party leader Nick Clegg’s focus on replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system with a cheaper set of nuclear arms.In a television interview yesterday, Clegg said that the Liberal Democrats “are not suggesting that we scrap the nuclear deterrent”, adding, ‘Do not vote for the Liberal Democrats if you think we’re advocating immediate unilateral nuclear disarmament. We’re not.”But Simon Hughes chose a different approach when questioned this morning by a reporter from the Quaker magazine, The Friend. Hughes said that it is “absolutely possible” that a Liberal Democrat government could choose the option of “no nuclear weapons at all”……

Hughes, who is on the left of the party, has a more firmly anti-nuclear background than Clegg. It remains to be seen whether the Liberal Democrat leader will back up Hughes’ approach or try to shift the emphasis back to replacing Trident with a different nuclear system. LibDems could scrap all nuclear weapons, says Hughes | Ekklesia

April 28, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons