The SNP urged Theresa May to delay Monday’s vote on Trident renewal, as thousands of people gathered in 37 towns and cities across Scotland over the weekend to protest against the continuation of the UK’s nuclear deterrent at Faslane.
Referring to the “unprecedented political turmoil” of the past few weeks, the nationalists’ Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, said: “Having spent the best part of a month engaged in backstabbing, score-settling and navel-gazing, neither the Tories nor Labour are in any fit state to be giving proper scrutiny to decisions as important as this.”
Robertson, whose 54 SNP MPs will all vote against renewal, warned May against using Trident as “a political tool with which to try and embarrass divisions in the Labour party”.
Although the UK Labour party affirmed its support for the deterrent at last autumn’s party conference, this spring aides to the leader, Jeremy Corbyn – who has always been outspoken in his opposition to Trident – suggested that Labour no longer had a policy in favour of renewal because it was under review.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour delegates voted overwhelmingly against renewal at their own party conference last year, despite the leader, Kezia Dugdale, remaining in favour of the policy.
Robertson said: “Theresa May has made big commitments about a new style of government. I would urge her to put her words into action by showing that the Tories’ political games around Trident are a thing of the past – and allow MPs, and the public, the fully informed debate that they deserve.”
The timing of Monday’s vote was initially decided by David Cameron, before the Conservatives’ leadership contest was truncated by Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal. But May herself has since backed the early vote, describing it as “sheer madness” not to renew the deterrent given the variety of security threats facing the UK.
The vote is still a procedural step away from the “maingate” decision, which MPs are also expected to be asked to vote on, which fully sanctions the Ministry of Defence proceeding to manufacture of the new submarines.
Robertson added that MPs needed to know the full costs of Trident renewal before they came to an informed decision, arguing that the widely used £167bn figure was based on partial information released by the UK government, while CND’s estimate was closer to £205bn.
“It would be both morally and economically indefensible for the UK government to commit to spending hundreds of billions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction – even more so at a time when they are cutting funding for public services.
“The enormous cost of Trident appears to be spiralling out of control. Before MPs can come to an informed view, they must have access to full costs across the lifetime of the programme.”
