Kate Hudson reflects on Parliament’s decision to go ahead with
Trident renewal.
In July Parliament voted to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system. Several hours of discussion resulted in an ill-informed, head-in-the-sand debate, short on facts, ignoring Trident’s irrelevance to the security challenges that we face today, and displaying a gung ho approach to the possession and use of nuclear weapons.
The new prime minister, Theresa May, shocked many with a display of astonishing enthusiasm for pressing the nuclear button, not least because the question was framed in terms of killing innocent civilians.
Important points were made by many across the parties – even if disregarded by the majority. Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, who is Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke powerfully against replacement. A former army officer, he is noted for highlighting the enormous life-time cost of Trident – in fact CND revised its figures upwards in the light of his research. He also drew parliament’s attention to emerging technologies which will make the subs detectable in years to come.
Committing £205 billion to a system that will be rendered obsolete by technological challenges inspires no confidence whatsoever in this government’s ability to spend public money to good purpose. Yet the facts shared by Blunt and others were water off a duck’s back for most of the MPs.
Why is that the case? That MPs should disregard the reality of the worthlessness of Trident when it comes to actually underpinning our security?
Too much of this has been driven by party political point scoring, both within and between parties. Many consider that the timing of the vote was chosen by Cameron, and then May, to unify the party in the post-Brexit moment and give her a boost as new prime minister – tough on defence. And as a special bonus she had an opportunity to throw a grenade into the Labour party which is currently undertaking a Defence Policy review. This quite rightly includes an assessment of whether Trident is useful or relevant to our security needs, but views are highly contested across the party. This was nothing short of playing politics with Britain’s national security and is to be deplored.
A further factor of significance is that this vote in Westminster – where 58 out of 59 Scottish MPs oppose Trident – effectively imposes these weapons on Scotland. The Scottish government, parliament and majority of Scottish people clearly reject Trident replacement. This surely renders the decision devoid of any legitimacy. There is already plenty of speculation that this vote will help trigger a second Scottish independence referendum.
This decision has demonstrated a failure of vision on the part of our government and all those who supported Trident replacement. This was a once in a generation opportunity to break with this antiquated weapons system and address our defence needs in ways appropriate to the 21st century.
Instead they voted for a cold war system on the basis that it underpins our standing in the world. They have failed to notice that the overwhelming majority of states in the world – those without nuclear weapons – continue to insist that we comply with our international treaty obligation to disarm. Far from enhancing our status, our continued failure to disarm does us enormous harm in the eyes of the global majority.
All the facts stack up against Trident – and they continue to do so, irrespective of this shameful and ill-informed vote.
CND will continue to campaign against replacement, working with those broad forces across society who wish to see an end to Britain’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.