6 February 2013

Labour will want to keep its Trident options open

A half-hearted commitment to renewal would make an easy concession to Lib Dems in future coailtion talks.

As with so many policies, Labour’s official position on whether or not it is worth funding a like-for-like replacement for the Trident submarine-based nuclear missile system is under review. More specifically, the view is that the party supports Britain having a nuclear deterrent. (Of course it does. The party isn’t about to revisit early 80s-style unilateral disarmament.) But the question of whether or not that requires having big Cold War-design submarines lurking in the seas ready to retaliate against the Soviets remains undecided.

So it is naturally a matter of interest when Des Browne, a former Labour defence secretary, co-authors an article in the Telegraph suggesting Trident may have had its day; not least because he championed the opposite view in government.

At the moment, on the government side, the matter is also subject to a review, headed by Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The very existence of that process is held up by Lib Dems as a mini-policy triumph, effectively thwarting the Tories’ hopes of prompt Trident renewal in this parliament. Scrapping the system is one of those totem Lib Dem policies in which activists take an especially vigorous interest even if the public is largely uninterested.

Labour, meanwhile, are ambivalent. There is still a whiff of CND around the party, but there is also a residual fear from the macho New Labour era of looking like a bunch of weak-kneed lefty pacifists. The Browne position is eminently reasonable: if there is a workable, cheaper alternative that retains some nuclear deterrent capacity, it would be perverse for a cash-strapped government not to take it.

That isn’t to say Labour is ready to adopt such a position. But it is worth noting that a final decision isn’t due before 2016 and it certainly won’t be taken this side of an election. That leaves Labour with the option of a manifesto pledge keeping all Trident options open. It probably hasn’t escaped the leadership’s notice that a vague, half-hearted commitment to Trident would also make an easy concession in the event of coalition negotiations with the Lib Dems in a hung parliament – a concession the Tories could not make.