Elephants and lemons: Lib Dems make Fox's bed of nails on Trident

Posted by simon clydesdale — 22 September 2010 at 11:31am - Comments

This morning the Lib Dem conference voted unanimously for a review of the decision to replace Trident, and finally managed to prod their ministers into making some noise on the issue. This is a huge step forward for the majority of Britons who aren't convinced of the need to spend £97 billion on cold war weapons whilst public services are being slashed. Simon Clydesdale, our man on the conference floor, explains the implications:

 

Shirley Williams was asked recently what it was like being in bed with the Conservatives. She cannily replied that it was actually a case of two beds. And this morning the Lib Dems took the opportunity to make their bed in a distinctly different style to their Tory coalition partners when they voted to adopt an emergency motion on replacing Trident.

The motion called for:

The Lib Dems have long argued against like-for-like replacement of the Trident system, calling for a full review of all alternatives. Their position acknowledges the military consensus that Trident is a system designed for a past era, bizarrely sent to endlessly stalk the seas by a government that admits it faces no nuclear threat from another state. This isn't so much walking softly with a big stick, more cruising aimlessly with a very expensive lemon.

So the party this morning gave itself a new mandate to push for further progress on Trident, in keeping with the coalition agreement that allows them 'to make the case for alternatives'.

The emergency motion stems from a day back in July when defence secretary Liam Fox had his world turned upside down. Whilst dipping his egg and soldiers one morning (he really takes his work home, does Dr Fox), he learnt that the Treasury was not willing to make him a special case. The money men made it clear that if he wanted to replace Trident then he would have to raid his own piggy bank, not dip into the central Treasury pot that might otherwise spend money on anachronistic luxuries such as schools, teachers, hospitals and nurses. Ever since then Trident, already the elephant in the room, has been trumpeting louder and louder.

Fox had fallen prey to his own myth-making, failing to understand that Trident funding as a matter of course comes from the MoD budget. Francis Pym, then Tory defence secretary, made this clear in July 1980 when replacement of the existing Polaris system with Trident was discussed, saying:

"We intend to accommodate this within the defence budget in the normal way, alongside our other major force improvements... the provision of the strategic deterrent has always been part of normal defence budgeting. It is a weapons system, like any other weapons system – ships, tanks or whatever it may be. Within the defence budget this can and will be accommodated in the same way as Polaris was accommodated 10 to 20 years ago."

What next for Fox, increasingly becoming an isolated voice on this issue, whilst alienating his own defence chiefs and troops? Well he has, whether wittingly or not, been led down the path of delaying the Trident decision until the next parliament, sometime after May 2015. This suits both sides of the coalition, enabling Fox to juggle his budget for this parliament without the massive burden of Trident's £20bn capital costs. If he has any sense he will also take the opportunity to extend the life of the existing submarines by taking them off their Cold War constant patrols. At the same time the Lib Dems will have the chance to, as the motion says, give Trident "the scrutiny which strategic, political and financial circumstances demand".

Nick Harvey, Lib Dem minister for the armed forces, spoke in favour of the motion (in fact, no one spoke against it), reaffirming the party's determination to argue the case against business as usual. He astutely pointed out that this is now a hot potato for Labour. The new Labour leader, announced this coming weekend, needs to take the elephant by the trunk and break free from their unquestioning support for the Tories on Trident replacement. It's the vision thing, stupid.

What next for the Lib Dems? They may well - in cahoots with their man in the Treasury Danny Alexander and his new chum George - have started the UK back on the road to scaling down its obsolete nuclear weapons of mass destruction and along the path to join the global momentum behind multilateral disarmament.

The first step is a comprehensive, transparent review of the UK's nuclear strategy and alternative options, called for in this motion, but absent from the present, hastily cobbled together ragbag of an SDSR. The Lib Dems need also to use this time to deeply engage in the debate and crystallize their own thinking.

Someone very high up in the MOD recently called for "a clean break from the military and political mindset of Cold War politics". That visionary was in fact Liam Fox. Hear, hear Dr Fox. Why not have that conversation in a full review, what are the Tories afraid of? Physician, heal thyself.

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