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Senior Tories agree with Jeremy Corbyn on ditching Trident nuclear weapons system

Not just Jeremy Corbyn – senior Tories also think ditching Trident might be a good idea https://tompride.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/not-just-jeremy-corbyn-senior-tories-also-think-ditching-trident-might-be-a-good-idea/18 Jan 2016  by Tom Pride

Perhaps the Cameron government should be more careful before labelling Jeremy Corbyn a national security ‘threat’ just for saying Trident should be scrapped. Because there are several influential people in the Tory Party who think Trident should be scrapped too.

Former Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Portillo agrees with Jeremy Corbyn:

“Our independent nuclear deterrent is not independent and doesn’t constitute a deterrent against anybody that we regard as an enemy. It is a waste of money and it is a diversion of funds that might otherwise be spent on perfectly useful and useable weapons and troops. But some people have not caught up with this reality.”

And Tim Montgomerie – who has been called one of the most influential Tories outside the cabinet – has also floated ditching Trident (from the Times last March): In fact, in 2009 Montgomerie praised the willingness of the Tory Party to discuss the scrapping of Trident as “tough thinking”.

Veteran Tory MP and former Tory Party chairman David Davis has alsoquestioned the affordability of Trident.

And before he was Prime Minister, David Cameron himself refused to rule outscrapping Trident.

But it’s not just senior Tories who agree with Corbyn.

Field Marshal Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Sir Hugh Beach have denounced Trident as “irrelevant”.

And in 2009, that well-known hotbed of radical socialism, the Daily Telegraphdiscussed reasons why Trident should be scrapped.

Even the Daily Mail has in the past pondered getting rid of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

OK. I think I’ve just about got the hang of this Trident discussion thing now.

Scrapping Trident is only a threat to national security when it’s not being proposed by a Tory?

Oh shit. Our nuclear deterrent runs on Windows XP. No, really, it does.

January 22, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK, weapons and war