Labour conference: Jeremy Corbyn faces battle over Trident
Labour conference: Delegates will not debate Trident
(35 minutes later)
Jeremy Corbyn has admitted he faces a battle to persuade his shadow cabinet to back him on scrapping the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system.
Jeremy Corbyn has avoided a showdown over his support for scrapping Britain's Trident nuclear weapons at the Labour conference in Brighton.
Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr at the Labour conference, the party leader said there may be a "difference of opinion" on the issue when MPs vote.
The highly anticipated vote had been expected to take place on Wednesday.
Labour MPs may be allowed to follow their conscience in a free vote.
But the motion failed to get the support it needed from activists in a ballot selecting the issues to be debated this week in Brighton.
Mr Corbyn also called for a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance, singling out Boots as a possible target.
Mr Corbyn will still have to convince his MPs and ministers to back disarmament when Parliament votes.
Mr Corbyn has vowed to transform Labour into a "big, open democratic" party where policies are openly debated rather than dictated by the leadership.
Some trade unions are against scrapping Trident because it will cost jobs but Mr Corbyn says Britain should ditch its "weapons of mass destruction".
'Free vote'
Labour MPs are "likely" to get a free vote on renewing Trident when Parliament votes on the issue next year.
The first test of the new approach will come this week in Brighton, when party members are set to vote on a string of key policies, including Trident, Syria and the EU.
Mr Corbyn said Labour was an "open and democratic party and the members at conference have decided to discuss the issues that they want to debate this week.
A number of unions, including the GMB, are against scrapping Trident, in part because of the impact it could have on defence industry jobs.
"These are important issues like the NHS, the refugee crisis, mental health and housing."
Parliament will also vote on renewing Trident next year but there is "likely" to be a free vote for Labour MPs, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson said.
Labour MP John Woodcock, who represents Barrow-in-Furness, where the Trident submarines are built, said it was a "sign many Labour supporters want to focus on public not re-run old battles that will split the party".
But former Labour leadership contender Chuka Umunna, who ruled out serving in the shadow cabinet because of differences with Mr Corbyn over issues including Trident, said it was "not plausible for us as an opposition not to have a position on the defence of the realm".
The eight issues selected for debate by Labour delegates are: Austerity and public services, employment rights, Europe, housing, the BBC licence fee, mental health, the NHS and the refugee crisis.
"I'm all for debate but, ultimately, we are going to have to have settled positions on things if people are to know what it is they are voting for," he told a fringe meeting.
'Modern politics'
Trident is the UK's sea-based nuclear weapons system - made up of submarines, missiles and warheads - and while the current generation will not begin to end their working lives until some time in the late 2020s, work on a replacement cannot be delayed because of the time it will take to complete.
Trident is the UK's sea-based nuclear weapons system - made up of submarines, missiles and warheads - and while the current generation will not begin to end their working lives until some time in the late 2020s, work on a replacement cannot be delayed because of the time it will take to complete.
Analysis: BBC political correspondent Chris Mason
Mr Corbyn, who is a longstanding anti-nuclear campaigner, said he hoped to do his "persuasive best" to get his deputy Tom Watson and other shadow cabinet members, such as shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer, to back him on Trident, but it would not be a "disaster" if there was a difference of opinion.
He's still tie free, but life is rather less carefree for Jeremy Corbyn these days. Labour's new leader was disarming in style and self-confident in mood on The Andrew Marr Show.
Forget the soundbites and party lines you come to expect from politicians. Mr Corbyn wants to celebrate disagreement. For now at least.
But, whisper it, the man admired by his supporters for his unwavering principles is hinting that compromise is in the air. That is because whilst he has spent a lifetime opposing the UK's nuclear weapons, he knows plenty of his colleagues are fully committed to them.
But the very fact it is even being debated tells you how very, very different this conference, and Labour, now is.
Mr Corbyn, who is a longstanding anti-nuclear campaigner, said he hoped to do his "persuasive best" to get Mr Watson and other shadow cabinet members, such as shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn and shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer, to back him on Trident, but it would not be a "disaster" if there was a difference of opinion.
He said: "We are going to come to an accommodation of some sort."
He said: "We are going to come to an accommodation of some sort."
Mr Watson, a former defence minister, told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: "Jeremy says he seeks to persuade us - I seek to persuade him too."
Mr Watson, a former defence minister, told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: "Jeremy says he seeks to persuade us - I seek to persuade him too."
He added that in "modern politics... you simply cannot have homogeneous positions where 200 people follow a line on everything".
He added that in "modern politics... you simply cannot have homogeneous positions where 200 people follow a line on everything".
Shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend it was "unlikely" he could be persuaded to change his mind on Trident, but did believe it was possible to reach a position on the issue that the party could "coalesce around".
But former Labour leadership contender Chuka Umunna, who ruled out serving in the shadow cabinet because of differences with Mr Corbyn over issues including Trident, said it was "not plausible for us as an opposition not to have a position on the defence of the realm".
Labour MP John Woodcock, who represents Barrow-in-Furness, where Trident submarines are built, said the majority of Labour MPs were in favour of renewing Trident and it would get the go-ahead when Parliament votes on it.
"I'm all for debate but, ultimately, we are going to have to have settled positions on things if people are to know what it is they are voting for," he told a fringe meeting.
All Labour MPs, including frontbenchers, could also be given a free vote on whether to support extending Britain's involvement in airstrikes against so-called Islamic State targets from Iraq to Syria.
Behind-closed-doors meetings will take place later to decide what the Labour conference motion on Trident will say.
BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said it could be watered down into a bland compromise text that reveals little about the party's future direction, with union sources predicting a "fudge".
In other conference developments:
'Better' policy forum
Mr Corbyn also detailed plans to open up the party's policy-making process to the thousands of new members, many of whom supported the radical left-wing platform on which he stood in the leadership election.
Asked whether "Trotskyists" thrown out during former leader Lord Kinnock's reforms to the party in the 1980s would now be allowed back in, Mr Corbyn said: "Anyone is welcome to join the Labour Party, providing they support the principles of the party and be content with that."
He said he was "not concerned in the slightest" if there were revolutionary left-wingers joining the party as he set a target of building Labour's membership to 500,000.
He also defended his shadow chancellor John McDonnell who has said in the past that he supports "insurrection" on the streets for political ends.
He told Andrew Marr Mr McDonnell had used "colourful" language to make a point, adding: "I'm not in favour of violence on the street or insurrection.
"I believe in doing things by persuasive, democratic means, that's what we have a parliamentary system for, that's what we have a democratic political structure for."
