nuclear-news

Labour’s nuclear weapons stance needs a rethink

Labour’s nuclear weapons stance needs a rethink,  Guardian, Richard Norton-Taylor
London  28 Feb 21, 
Readers respond to the shadow defence secretary’s announcement that his party’s commitment to Trident is ‘non-negotiable’

You report (Labour to state ‘non-negotiable’ support for UK’s nuclear weapons, 25 February) that the shadow defence secretary, John Healey, says his party’s commitment to nuclear weapons is “non-negotiable”, seemingly taking a harder line even than successive Conservative governments, which have at least supported talks on multilateral nuclear disarmament.

The new Labour leadership in its rhetoric seems more frightened of being accused at home of being weak on defence than a nuclear attack by a foreign power. For years, Whitehall analysts have considered a pandemic more likely than any real threat of a nuclear attack. Yet for years, ministers and opposition frontbenchers ignored the former while exaggerating the latter. Trade union leaders, meanwhile, back a new Trident missile programme and spending more than £200bn on unusable weapons, citing the need to preserve highly skilled jobs. Yet Britain has had to bank on French engineers for civil nuclear power stations of which Britain now appears to be in dire need.   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/28/labours-nuclear-weapons-stance-needs-a-rethink

February 28, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, UK, weapons and war