John Reid's promise in the Guardian this morning of a full debate on renewing Britain's nuclear deterrent will provoke considerable interest in the Parliamentary Labour party and amongst party activists, writes Oliver King.
Since unilateralism was dropped by Neil Kinnock, the Labour leadership has kept the issue of Britain's nuclear arsenal well off limits for fear of allowing opponents to label the party as peaceniks. Dr Reid's call for an open and transparent debate shows some confidence that an overwhelming majority of the Labour party has learned to love the bomb. But is that the case?
In July, the late Robin Cook, after years of life inside Tony Blair's pro-nuclear cabinet came out against replacing Trident, saying it was hopelessly irrelevant to the new threats facing the country and contrary to the government's international obligations. Mr Cook's Guardian column was his last significant political contribution before his untimely death and was directly aimed at provoking the debate Dr Reid engages in today.
Mr Cook's return to the anti-nuclear fold delighted many on the left for whom opposition to nuclear weapons is a fundamental article of faith. During the long years of the cold war there was no more divisive issue within the party. Ever since Clement Attlee kept the development of the British bomb quiet from the rest of the 1945 Labour cabinet, Labour leaders have tried to curtail debate to avoid internal dispute with the left. The great battles between Tribune and the Bevanites in the late 50s and the unilateral nuclear disarmament debates in the early 80's were schisms that took years to heal.
Michael Foot was in tears when Nye Bevan told Labour delegates in 1959 that unilateralism would mean sending a foreign secretary "naked into the conference chamber". The idealists in the party saw giving up what they called "suicide bombs" as the best way of ensuring a more peaceful world. They could never agree with the compromises made by the realists who, while maybe wishing nuclear bombs had never existed, saw giving them up as weakening Britain's defence and politically naive.
There are great historical echoes, then, in the new Reid-Cook debate. The defence secretary knows that, on cost and on grounds of proliferation, Robin Cook made a powerful case against renewing Trident. Hence his argument that the new nuclear nations of Pakistan, India, North Korea have replaced the Soviet Union as a threat we ignore at our peril.
