With British politics in a state of array, there’s been some interesting press coverage in the past couple days regarding future plans for the Trident. On Monday, the Financial Times published an article about the pressure Brown is facing on the Trident renewal issue. In particular, the article cites a recent report foreign affairs committee that states:
the Government should specify whether there are circumstances under which the UK would be prepared to suspend the Trident renewal programme.
That is followed up by a pair of articles from the Guardian and the Telegraph discussing the Guardian interview with Nick Clegg,
the most senior politician to say that Trident should not be renewed when it expires in 2024.
Some surprisingly strong quotes from the Guardian article on big topics including the nuclear deterrent:
Clegg disclosed that he has asked Sir Menzies Campbell, the former party leader, to lead a review on how Britain could operate a scaled-down deterrent. But he added that it would be an “unhappy event” if the review ended with Britain keeping a nuclear deterrent. [emphasis added]
the role of nuclear weapons in Britain’s power:
He also rejected any suggestion that Britain’s diplomatic status as a world power on the UN security council would be undermined if it was no longer a nuclear-weapon state. “That is nostalgic, sepia-tinted phooey. The security council is a complete anachronism. It does not reflect at all the changed world we live in.”
and the closer:
“We’ve just got to say candidly we have to move on.”
These statements clearly have a domestic political purpose given the financial problems in Britain and Brown barely holding on to power but these are some very bold statements. Times are tough in Britain but there will have to be some serious discussion that will require some substantial buy-in before even considering abandoning a nuclear deterrent, not to mention reforming the Security Council.
*Update*– op-ed in the Guardian today criticizing Klegg’s recent statements.
Harry Phibbs, a
Harry Phibbs, a semi-prominent Conservative, has a strong piece in the Guardian’s Opinion section largely agreeing with you (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/18/nick-clegg-trident).
He argues for the importance of effective independent deterrence capabilities since the fall of the Soviet Union: “In many ways the additional safeguard of an independent nuclear deterrent makes more sense since the end of the cold war”.