It’s reported that a decision on the design contract for new Trident submarines, due in September, may be put off until after the conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty next year.
If these messages are accurate (and there’s some confusion, because subsequently No 10 issued a statement saying that the schedule is unchanged), it represents a victory for common sense and it demonstrates that the Government has moved its position considerably in the last few weeks.
The NPT conference promises to be far more productive than its predecessor five years ago. Obama has already signalled a more active approach than the previous White House incumbent, as witnessed by the recent arms reduction talks in Moscow. And Gordon Brown has reiterated his intention, first expressed in March last year, of putting British weapons into the negotiation process. Although our arsenal only represents a small fraction of the world total, it has great political significance.
The climate of opinion is changing and for the first time an opinion poll has indicated widespread doubts about the British deterrent. Defence expenditure is high on the political agenda, mainly because of the Afghanistan conflict. It’s generally recognised that boots on the ground will continue to be more important than high-tech equipment in maintaining our security and peacekeeping overseas.
It’s obviously too soon to anticipate the course of the negotiations but the intervening months should see further debate about whether these Armageddon weapons really make us any safer.
James Valentine
James Valentine is a constituency representative on Labour's National Policy Forum and a member of the Britain in the World Policy Commission. He was a candidate for the Eastern Region in the 2009 European Elections and a parliamentary candidate for Mid Bedfordshire in 2001.
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