Labour and the ‘empty swank’ of keeping Trident

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/11/labour-and-the-empty-swank-of-keeping-trident

Version 0 of 1.

On 24 January 1946, the UN general assembly’s first resolution called for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Today, nine countries possess more than 15,000 between them, many more powerful than those dropped on Japan in 1945. In 1970, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) came into force. This committed the five then existing nuclear weapon powers – the US, USSR (now Russia), UK, France and China, the five permanent members of the UN security council (P5) – to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”. No such negotiations have ever taken place, nor is the NPT mentioned by Ian Jack (Trident: the British question, 11 February).

After 45 years of the P5’s failure to implement their NPT commitment, on 7 December 2015, the general assembly set up an open-ended working group (OEWG) to develop “legal measures, legal provisions and norms” for achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world. This could make real progress towards the “multilateral disarmament” that everyone pays lip service to. Yet the P5 have jointly refused to participate on the grounds that “an instrument such as a ban” would “undermine the NPT regime”. Note the irony: this includes the cold war “enemy” states, which most people would consider still to be potential enemies.

The Labour party can and should be completely united in pressing the government to drop its opposition to the OEWG, take an active and constructive part in its negotiations, and in the meantime delay any decision on the replacement of Trident. It is precisely the compromise that Rafael Behr (Trident really is a destructive weapon – just look at the Labour party, 10 February) says is impossible.Frank JacksonFormer co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign

• The campaign against the Trident replacement is coming to a climax. It is not helped by Rafael Behr. He repeats what he has written on a number of occasions that “the majority of people in Britain” support the renewal of Trident. A House of Commons briefing paper in January 2016 looked at polls over the past 10 years and noted that “of the 11 polls, four offered respondents a binary choice between keeping and scrapping Trident. In three of these polls, more respondents were in favour of scrapping Trident than keeping it”.

Some polls do indeed show a majority in favour of nuclear weapons – usually for a cheaper option – but that’s not surprising given that the media is overwhelmingly supportive and the threat of nuclear war and our consequent annihilation has receded somewhat in recent years. Behr’s repeated black and white interpretation of a complex picture does not help.Mike McGrathLeeds CND

• Columnists in your paper highlight both infighting within the parliamentary Labour party and what MPs think is popular with the public. Let us remember that MPs voted against hanging, going against public opinion at that time. MPs and party members should work out what is right.

My position on Trident is clear: we should never use a weapon with such appalling impact on civilians and our environment; unwilling to fire the weapon, then, as defence chiefs have pointed out, we have no deterrent; its cost is obscene at a time when fellow citizens have daily services savagely cut, and refugees in despair haunt our TV screens; it does not offer security in today’s world; our standing in the world is better maintained by cooperating with other nations; it is wrong to keep Trident for the sake of jobs. The Lucas Aerospace project of the 1970s was a model for using people’s skills in new ways, creating jobs with money saved. Let Labour be proud to host this debate.Roger CloughEmeritus professor, Lancaster University

• Rafael Behr’s thoughtful piece on the debate over Trident omits an argument which Jeremy Corbyn also misses: the total fallacy of Trident as a defence of Britain against nuclear assault. In 1945, Ernest Bevin said, understandably, of the original Hiroshima atom bomb: “We should have one of those things and slap a bloody great union jack on it.” At that date, his concern for immediate national security was real and honest. Though straightforward nationalism after a great and terrible war, also applied.

Today, only the nationalism counts. In practice, British security against nuclear attack, like that of all the non-nuclear (and non-assaulted) countries in Europe, rests upon advanced US weapons which that country can afford. Trident, secure in US waters, is a simple statement of the “bloody great union jack” thesis. Seventy years after Bevin, it has passed beyond rational expenditure and become empty swank.

Jeremy Corbyn, knowing the derision which a serious moral argument prompts among Blair’s people, should also make the rational economy case and speak of Trident for what it is: a 96in TV screen in a three-room flat.Edward PearceRaskelf, North Yorkshire

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com