Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara]

Indeed. I will take no such lectures.

We all know that the United Kingdom’s obsession with being a nuclear power has more to do with politics than with defence. The UK’s so-called independent nuclear deterrent is not really a military weapon; it is a political weapon. It is as political today as it was in 1946 when Ernest Bevin returned from the United States having seen the atomic bomb and enthusiastically declared:

“We’ve got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs. We’ve got to have the Union Jack on top of it.”

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will not. Sadly, those words and that sentiment seem to have dictated the thinking not just of the British establishment, but of Conservative and, sadly, Labour politicians ever since.

Let us be honest about it. Having this so-called independent nuclear deterrent is all about allowing the United Kingdom to perpetuate the myth that it is still a world superpower. Judging by the astronomical amounts of money that Members are prepared to spend on these weapons, it seems that there is no price too high. There is no price they will not pay to propagate that delusion. Eye-watering amounts of public money are being poured into weapons of mass destruction at a time when poverty and child poverty are at Dickensian levels and food bank use has never been higher.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

Absolutely. Is the SNP’s position that NATO should cease to be a nuclear alliance? If so, how would that make us safer from Russia given what we know about its aggressive stance under President Putin and the way that it is proliferating, in contravention of the non-proliferation treaty, in a way that UK is not? Or is the SNP’s position actually that we should leave it all to the Americans and that although we do not accept the hegemony of American global power in any other form, we are fine just to sit underneath their nuclear umbrella here? That is not a responsible position, but unfortunately it is one that we hear far too often.

I am a great admirer of the shadow Defence team for the way that they have battled to try to keep Labour’s policy, on the face of it, sensible. They have been huge allies over the years. However, we cannot escape the fact that the Leader of the Opposition remains implacably opposed to the use of the deterrent, which renders it, at a stroke—

[Mike Gapes]

Is not the essence of nuclear deterrence that if you have nuclear weapons you have to be prepared to say that you will use them, and does not someone who says that they will never use them under any circumstances undermine the essence of that deterrence policy?

[John Woodcock]

They do, absolutely. It makes it very hard to imagine why a future Labour Government would continue to pour in the billions of pounds that would be needed to maintain the deterrent once they had rendered it useless.

Let me once again thank the people of Barrow, in particular, for the amazing work that they have done in serving the nation for over 100 years of the submarine, 50 of which have maintained our policy of continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence.