nuclear-news

Labour and nuclear weapons: a turbulent ideological history

BY CHAS NEWKEY-BURDEN, THE WEEK UK, 15 Apr 24

From the 1940s to Keir Starmer, the party leadership has zigzagged in and out of love with the bomb

“We’ve got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs,” Labour’s then foreign secretary Ernest Bevin reportedly said in the 1940s, and “we’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it”.

That “thing” was the atomic bomb, but since being acquired by the UK, nuclear weapons have been a “divisive issue” within Labour, said the BBC. 

Anti-nuke ‘fixture’

Michael Foot, who became Labour leader in 1980, was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and “a fixture at anti-nuclear demonstrations”, said socialist magazine Tribune. 

When Neil Kinnock took over as leader in 1983, the party’s policy, which he supported, was unilateral nuclear disarmament and the removal of all US nuclear weapons and bases from British soil. But this policy was only supported by a minority of the British public, and Labour lost the 1987 general election.

By 1989, Kinnock had convinced the party to drop these policies, but “many” on the Labour left remain “vehemently opposed” to that decision, said the BBC.

Previously ‘unthinkable’

As a young MP, Tony Blair was a member of CND, but he was never strongly in favour of unilateral disarmament, and as party leader, he was on board with the party’s pro-nuclear policy……………………………………………

A ‘nuclear-free world’

Like Foot and Blair, Jeremy Corbyn was also a CND member, rising up to be vice-president of the campaign group before he became party leader in 2015. Corbyn told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme that if he became prime minister, he would instruct the UK’s defence chiefs never to use the Trident nuclear weapons system.

“I am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons,” he said. “I am opposed to the holding of nuclear weapons. I want to see a nuclear-free world. I believe it is possible.”……………………

‘Unshakeable’

Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, has moved the party back to a staunchly pro-nuclear policy. In an article in the Daily Mail last week, he said that his commitment to the UK’s nuclear weapons was “unshakeable” and “absolute”……………………

Asked by ITV News if he would be willing to push the nuclear button as PM if Britain were under attack, Starmer said that “deterrence only works if there is a preparedness to use it”. https://theweek.com/defence/labour-nuclear-weapons-history

April 19, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, UK