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| Corbyn: UK could keep Trident submarines but without warheads | Corbyn: UK could keep Trident submarines but without warheads |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the UK could keep its Trident submarine fleet but without carrying nuclear warheads. | Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the UK could keep its Trident submarine fleet but without carrying nuclear warheads. |
| The Labour leader said there were "options" for maintaining defence jobs while showing the UK was willing to take a lead in nuclear "de-escalation". | The Labour leader said there were "options" for maintaining defence jobs while showing the UK was willing to take a lead in nuclear "de-escalation". |
| He told the Andrew Marr Show protecting jobs was his "first priority" and he wanted a debate about how to do this. | He told the Andrew Marr Show protecting jobs was his "first priority" and he wanted a debate about how to do this. |
| Parliament is to hold a vote on whether to renew Trident by building four new Vanguard submarines later this year. | Parliament is to hold a vote on whether to renew Trident by building four new Vanguard submarines later this year. |
| Live updates: Sunday's political interviews | Live updates: Sunday's political interviews |
| In the interview, Mr Corbyn also said: | |
| Mr Corbyn is at odds with many of his MPs over the future of the UK nuclear weapons system, which will cost an estimated £60bn to renew, and has commissioned a review led by shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry to look at its future, likely to report in the summer. | |
| The Labour leader has been a longstanding opponent of Trident but some MPs and peers have threatened to resign if Labour reverses its decades-long support for the nuclear deterrent. | The Labour leader has been a longstanding opponent of Trident but some MPs and peers have threatened to resign if Labour reverses its decades-long support for the nuclear deterrent. |
| Mr Corbyn told the BBC that Trident was a relic from a "cold war generation" that was not capable of protecting the UK from current threats, and he did not believe David Cameron would ever contemplate using it. | Mr Corbyn told the BBC that Trident was a relic from a "cold war generation" that was not capable of protecting the UK from current threats, and he did not believe David Cameron would ever contemplate using it. |
| 'Secure world' | |
| Asked, in that case, what 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." | |
| He added: "If anyone uses a nuclear weapon it is catastrophic for the whole globe... There are options there." | He added: "If anyone uses a nuclear weapon it is catastrophic for the whole globe... There are options there." |
| Mr Corbyn said Ms Thornberry's review was "very interesting" and hoped there would be a "mature debate" about the way "we protect ourselves against insecurity and bring about a more secure world". | Mr Corbyn said Ms Thornberry's review was "very interesting" and hoped there would be a "mature debate" about the way "we protect ourselves against insecurity and bring about a more secure world". |
| What is Trident for? | |
| Since 1969, according to government documents, a British submarine carrying nuclear weapons has always been on patrol, gliding silently beneath the waves, somewhere in the world's oceans. | |
| The logic is to deter a nuclear attack on the UK because, even if the nation's conventional defence capabilities were destroyed, the silent submarine would still be able to launch a catastrophic retaliatory strike on the aggressor, a concept known as mutually assured destruction. | |
| The submarines carry up to 16 Trident missiles, each can be fitted with a number of warheads, which can be directed at up to 12 different targets. | |
| Read more about the history of the UK's nuclear deterrent | |
| Union leaders have warned that scrapping Trident could devastate communities reliant on the defence industry. | |
| The Labour leader said he wanted to rebalance the UK economy away from a reliance on the services sector to high-skill, high-paid manufacturing and 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 re-direct investment into those yards, factories and companies that would be making that material and systems to go with Trident so their jobs are protected. That is the first priority". | |
| Mr Corbyn, who outlined plans on Sunday to cap levels of executive pay and stop firms from paying dividends which don't pay a living wage, rejected suggestions he was only talking to people who agreed with him and not engaging with the rest of the public. | |
| He said he wanted to "reach out to everybody", including those who voted Conservative at the last election, to address what he said were the "grotesque levels of inequality", a crisis in affordable housing and the "atomisation" of the health service. | |
| He said that he backed repealing legislation passed by the Thatcher government in the 1980s banning so-called secondary or sympathy strike action by unions. He said that secondary action was "legal in other countries" and asked whether he would legalise it, he replied "yes, of course". | |
| "Sympathy action is legal in most other countries and it should also be legal here," he said. "Nobody willingly goes on strike. They go on strike as an ultimate weapon. The number is actually very small. it's an ultimate weapon that is used." |