Ahead of vote, government preempts Trident decision
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Version 0 of 1. The government said it wanted a civilised, mature, debate about Brexit. That has already seems to be strictly for the birds. There never was much of a chance of a civilised and mature debate about Trident, partly because of the divisions within Labour - civil wars can be particularly vicious - and because the Conservative party leadership could not resist rubbing salt in an open wound. Michael Fallon, the defence secretary who seems to relish his role as chief government attack man, will be at it again on Friday when he addresses the Scottish Tory party conference. He will trumpet his announcement on Thursday confirming my colleague Ewen MacAskill’s story in Thursday’s Guardian, that the government has agreed to spend another £642m to replace the existing Trident nuclear submarine fleet, a move which is clearly a further attempt to pre-empt a Commons vote on whether to go ahead with the project. The government has now spent close on £4bn on the submarine replacement programme whose total cost is now officially estimated to cost £31bn, excluding a £10bn contingency fund. Fallon is likely to accuse Labour - and the SNP - of jeopardising national security and thousands of skilled jobs. But would not many of those skilled jobs still be needed to maintain and then decommission, those nuclear-powered and nuclear armed Trident subs? Could not the skilled labour be deployed elsewhere, not least in building new, much-needed, civil nuclear reactors, or other boats for the navy? While Labour enthusiasts for Trident cite jobs and dwell on the UK “status” argument, Fallon and the nuclear lobby speak of Putin’s dangerous, resurgent, Russia. How a new British Trident fleet, which will not be operational until the 2030s, would deter Russia has not been explained. Concerns have been expressed about the vulnerability of large submarines from underwater drone technology and sensors. The former Labour defence secretary, Lord Des Browne, is now questioning the viability of Trident subs. “Perhaps like many other weapons systems, we have grown out of the nuclear age and our own technology has defeated it,” he said recently. Browne added: “I am not a unilateral disarmer; I have a record of supporting deterrence and deterrence with nuclear weapons. What I am saying is we are suffering from the lack of any proper scrutiny of these weapon systems by our parliament and by our decision-makers.” Though Nato, as well as Russia and China, are developing such systems, UK ministers dismiss these concerns. And they have not explained how Britain would keep up with a threatened new arms race as the US plans to spend the equivalent of billions of pounds on a new generation of nuclear weapons. In the end, as others have said, the west needs Russia, and Russia needs the west. |