JEREMY Corbyn has reignited the row over Trident within the Labour Party after he suggested the UK could retain the nuclear missile submarines, but put them to sea without warheads.
His plan, outlined on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, appeared to be a way to win over trade unions who fear that scrapping Trident would destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the defence industry.
Pro-Trident Labour MPs greeted the proposal with derision, while the Tories said it showed Labour was a “threat to national security”.
In his interview, Corbyn also suggested opening up a line of communication with Daesh and pledged to repeal Tory union laws that ban sympathy strikes.
On Trident, Corbyn reiterated his long-standing opposition to nuclear weapons and said it was a relic from a “Cold War generation” that was not capable of protecting the UK from current threats. He also said he believed David Cameron would never contemplate using it.
Asked, in that case, what was about the point of having more than one submarine on constant patrol, known as the continuous-at-sea deterrent, he said: “They don’t have to have warheads on them. If anyone uses a nuclear weapon it is catastrophic for the whole globe ... there are options there.”
Union leaders have warned that scrapping Trident could devastate communities reliant on the defence industry, and Corbyn said he recognised the need to retain “amazing skills and technology”.
“The point I have always made is, I recognise that if there is going to be a change in the Trident programme, the first priority has to be to protect those jobs and redirect investment into those yards, factories and companies that would be making that material and systems to go with Trident so their jobs are protected," he said. "That is the first priority.”
Shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry, who is carrying out a review of the party’s defence policy, later confirmed she was looking at the “Japanese option”, retaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons without actually possessing them.
“That’s certainly one that would be available to us, and that’s one of the things that needs to be looked at,” she told the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme.
However, any hopes that Corbyn's move would defuse potentially the most divisive issue facing the party were quickly dashed as pro-Trident MPs rushed to pour scorn on the plan.
John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, where the replacement submarines will be built, said it was completely implausible.
“Having a deterrent that has no ability to deter because it has no missiles is like having an army with broken rifles and no ammunition.”
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