A debate in the Labour Party that has been around for 70 years which the media now calls a "new" split.
Labour split on defence grows as Maria Eagle criticises Corbyn over Trident
The "row" within the labour
party, as the hysterical media report it, or the debate as it
actually is (and as sensible people describe it), surrounding the
question of nuclear weapons and “deterrence” has been going on
for decades. Since the 1945 in fact, when the sights and sounds of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still fresh in the mind as recent memory
or for some, actual experience, the abhorrence and revulsion at the
thought that any civilised nation could employ weapons of mass
destruction against the civilian population of another country has
for many, been too awful to contemplate. The debate has moved on
since then, through the CND days of the 1950's, the Aldermaston March
and all that, through the 1960' and the Cuban missile crisis and
right up to the present day through Gaitskell and his “Fight, fight
and fight again” speech, Wilson, Foot, Blair (who would go to war
with anybody and would probably be enough of a megalomaniac to “press
the button” if someone criticised his aftershave). There are
passionate, sincere and deeply held beliefs and opinions on both
sides of the argument.
Today however, and for some decades
past, there has been the added complication of the United States of
America with their neoconservative foreign policy and the myth of the
“Special relationship” which successive British governments still
believes to be in place, even though Washington has repeatedly
indicated that such arrangements exist only in the minds of some
British politicians. The so called United Kingdom “Independent
Nuclear Deterrent” arises from the terms of the 1963 Polaris Sales
Agreement which was modified in 1982 for Trident, supplied from the
United States by Lockheed Martin Space Systems. The main economic
beneficiaries of this arrangement are and always will be the
Americans.
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| HMS Victorious. not an "independent" deterrent. |
There are two fundamental flaws with
retaining a “nuclear capability” in this country.
Firstly, the concept of MAD (mutually
assured destruction) is based on the naïve notion that in the
4minutes (maximum) time warning that would be available, there would
be sufficient opportunity to verify that (a) an attack was taking
place, (b) who was the aggressor launching such an attack and (b)
that it was able to retaliate, and therein lies the second
fundamental flaw.
The United Kingdom “Independent
Nuclear Deterrent” is neither independent nor does it deter.
Before any retaliatory strike can be
carried out by this country using our Trident missiles, it is a known
but not widely reported fact, that permission has to be obtained from
the President at the time of the United States of America. Only with
this permission will the “launch codes” for the warheads be
released by the United States Department of Defence, to make our
warheads live and able to function. Until such time as these codes
are programmed into the missiles, the warheads are nothing more than
a few circuits and wires encased in metal and sitting on top of some
plutonium or uranium pods. What if the Americans refused to release
the codes?
All in all, the United Kingdom's
“Independent Nuclear Deterrent” is nothing more than a National
Status symbol and an incredibly expensive status symbol at that.
The £billions to be spent on replacing
this military white elephant, would be better allocated to building
homes or schools or hospitals or a combination of all three. With the
amount to be spent on Trident replacements we could certainly afford
it.
The debate on nuclear disarmament both
within the Labour party and around the country generally will
continue as the media stoke the controversy with its mischievous
“reporting”. It is a debate which has been around for decades. It
is not a new phenomenon, even though the media will encourage the
idea that it is a new split within the Labour party.
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