May defends UK nuclear arms as Parliament votes on renewal
Posted: Jul 18, 2016 4:40 AM MDT
Updated: Jul 18, 2016 11:11 AM MDT
LONDON (AP) – British lawmakers are voting Monday on whether to replace the country’s fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, a powerful but expensive symbol of the country’s military status.
The Conservative government is determined to maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which consists of four Royal Navy submarines armed with Trident missiles. It says replacing the aging submarines, in service since the 1990s, will cost up to 41 billion pounds ($54 billion) over 20 years.
In her first address to Parliament since taking office last week, Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t hesitate when an opposition lawmaker asked the toughest question for any leader of a nuclear state: Would she be willing to order a nuclear strike?
“Yes,” May said.
The government motion has the backing of Parliament’s Conservative majority and is almost certain to pass. But the debate has stirred strong emotions – and split the opposition Labour Party.
May said “the nuclear threat has not gone away; if anything, it has increased,” with a newly assertive Russia and a desire from countries including North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
May said that although Britain has voted to leave the European Union, “we will not leave our NATO and European allies behind.”
“We cannot outsource the grave responsibility we shoulder for keeping our people safe,” she said, adding that scrapping the weapons would be “a gamble that would enfeeble our allies and embolden our enemies.”
Britain has been a nuclear power since the 1950s, and both Labour and Conservative governments have consistently supported atomic weapons.
May’s Conservatives made replacing the four submarines – Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance – with four new ones a promise in last year’s election.
The Scottish National Party, which holds 54 of the 650 House of Commons seats, is firmly opposed to renewing the Trident fleet, which is based on Scotland’s west coast.
The issue divides the largest opposition party, Labour, which is in the midst of a battle over who will lead it.
The divide between pro- and anti-nuclear forces has long been a fault-line in the Labour Party. It was Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labour government that developed atomic weapons in the years following World War II, making Britain the world’s third nuclear-armed state after the United States and the Soviet Union.
Labour’s official policy is to keep nuclear weapons, but the party also has a large number of anti-nuclear activists in its ranks.
Nuclear disarmament has been a lifelong cause for beleaguered party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is being challenged for the top job by two Labour legislators.
“If we want a nuclear weapons-free world, this is an opportunity where we can start down that road,” Corbyn said, urging lawmakers to oppose replacing the subs.
Corbyn has given Labour lawmakers a free vote on the issue, and many will likely vote to keep the nuclear program to protect thousands of unionized defense jobs.
Labour lawmaker John Woodcock, who represents the town where the new subs will be built, stood to tell May that, whatever Corbyn says, “it remains steadfastly Labour policy to renew the deterrent.”
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