Scottish Labour manifesto will oppose renewal of Trident

Kezia Dugdale has confirmed Scottish Labour will oppose the renewal of Trident in its Holyrood manifesto, which will be published next week.

The Scottish Labour leader said her plan to axe the nuclear missile defence would be combined with details of how to create replacement jobs for workers affected if the Faslane programme were to be closed. The decision enacts the result of a vote at the party’s conference last year.

“I took over the leadership of the Labour Party and it was very clear to me that there were very mixed views on the issue of Trident”, Dugdale told BBC radio.

“My job as leader was to try and resolve that, work a way through it, and the way that I did that was by creating space at our party conference for our party members to do something really unique, have a healthy democratic debate about it and then vote, and we did that and the result of that process is that the Scottish Labour Party is opposed to the renewal of Trident.

“We want to make sure that the communities affected by Trident not being renewed are protected and there are new jobs, and there’s a lot of detail on how we would go about doing that.

“But we are opposed to the renewal of Trident and you’ll see that reflected in our manifesto.”

Last year’s vote put Scottish Labour at odds with the UK-wide Labour Party, which retains a policy of support for the at-sea nuclear deterrent. However Jeremy Corbyn is a longstanding opponent of Trident and the policy is part of a review being carried out by shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry.

Trident is based at Her Majesty’s Naval Base is Faslane, on the Clyde river. As of 2014, 4,550 people are employed by the Ministry of Defence at the base, though the Government does not record how many of these are occupied with Trident-based activities.

Earlier today Scotland posted a 20,000 rise in unemployment to 171,000 in February. The unemployment rate is now 6.2 per cent in Scotland.

The figures were a blow to the SNP, which launched their manifesto today in an attempt to win a third term in Government. Scottish Labour’s public services spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said the document was “continuing Tory austerity in Scotland”.