Discussion of the LibDem position on Trident still rumbles on. First of all, hats off to Martin Veart, who with other Lib Dem anti-nuclear activists on the Lib Dem Act website is intent on making party policy fully anti-nuclear within the year. I wish you every success. Meanwhile, Nick Clegg has been on the Today programme (2:19:00) , discussing just this issue, and I didn’t find him very compelling. Again, he made the true point that the Lib Dems want the issue reviewed, but on the actual matter in hand he was downright woolly. It’s interesting to read the views of his party rank-and-filers on the Lib Dem Voice website.
Needless to say, the Spectator magazine attacked Clegg for being all over the place and trying to be ‘all things to all men’. It may well be the case that he wants to be a bit anti-nuclear to get the anti-nuclear vote and a bit pro-nuclear so he doesn’t seem soft on defence, but this fence sitting won’t satisfy anyone. Putting nukes on cruise missiles on Astute submarines sounds like a dog’s breakfast. I’m not sure how much money that would save, but frankly, it does nothing to address the real issue: nuclear disarmament is necessary to make our future more secure and to prevent the proliferation that would ultimately lead to nuclear use. Surely the type of nuclear weapon we have would be immaterial? They all kill you.
Meanwhile on the international stage, Israel’s PM, Netanyahu is trying to avoid the issue of Israel’s nuclear arsenal by boycotting Obama’s imminent nuclear security conference . Not surprisingly, some of his neighbours are raising the issue but he doesn’t want to talk about it. But in doing this, he has drawn further attention to the arsenal. It is an issue that’s not going to go away.
You can lobby your local general election candidates about Trident replacement at https://www.cnduk.org/election.