Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Debate between Mike Gapes and Brendan O'Hara

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.