In recent months it has become increasingly clear that the UK has a massive hole in its national budget and whoever comes to power after the next election is going to have to slash government spending. The debate about what should be cut has just begun, but already emerging at the top of many people's lists (certainly mine) is the planned £76bn replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system.
Support a full debate on Trident
Email your MP and ask them to back the EDM
Take action"Trident, what the
bloody hell is it for?" was a question famously asked by Field Marshall Lord
Carver over a decade ago. Now more and more members of the military, politicians
and economists are asking the same question.
At the same time people like Barack Obama are helping to shift the international debate towards accepting that what we need do is finally ban nuclear weapons, not build new ones. The talk is all about how we get to global zero.
Yet behind the scenes, our government is planning to use the parliamentary holiday to slip through a decision to go ahead with the next stage of replacing Trident. This decision (known as 'initial gate') will authorise the expenditure of up to £2.1bn on developing designs for new nuclear armed submarines.
Opposition is growing by the day. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee last month called for a debate before approving initial gate. Yesterday, four MPs from across the political divide put down an early day motion (EDM) calling for the government to delay the decision until parliament returns and can scrutinise the plans in full.
They also called for the question of replacing Trident to be included in a full strategic defence review. Bizarrely, the recently announced government review of defence completely excludes Trident.
If you're as outraged by this as I am, email your MP via the CND website and ask them to sign up to the early day motion.
