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Trident and party policy Lord Kinnock and other Labour rebels will no doubt have their own reasons for opposing the replacement of Trident, but one cannot avoid observing that most of the opposition is being organised by leftwingers in our party. It also seems to me that the rebels’ unifying argument is one that favours the traditional leftwing position of nuclear disarmament. However, on page 88 of our 2005 party manifesto it states: “We are also committed to retaining the independent nuclear deterrent.” Now, if the Labour Party has made this commitment, and we know the Tories have a similar manifesto commitment — and we also know that the present Parliament as a whole would always approves such a commitment — what then is (was) the point of rebelling against our own Government and our own party policy? If the leftwingers in our party genuinely want to reopen the debate on nuclear weapons then that debate should properly take place within the party policy development process, and not in the House of Commons. MIKE ALLOTT, Chandler’s Ford, Hants |
