by Keith Richmond
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has condemned the Government’s defence green paper as a “disastrous missed opportunity”. To specifically exclude the Trident nuclear deterrent from its review of defence spending is, it says, “avoiding the huge white elephant in the room”.
CND chair Kate Hudson said: “The exclusion of Trident, one of the most costly defence programmes, makes this defence review a nonsense. Bob Ainsworth talked of the ‘real financial pressure’ facing future plans, yet he is living in a fantasy world if he thinks spending £76 billion on a Trident replacement won’t have major opportunity costs – in defence and in other areas. Excluding the ruinously expensive Trident programme is like avoiding the huge white elephant in the room.”
A cross-party group of 117 MPs complained last summer that this defence review should include consideration of Trident. An Early Day Motion tabled by former Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram and former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle showed the strength of feeling in the House.
Ms Hudson added: “When all major parties are proposing huge spending cuts, this is the time for ministers to realise that scrapping the Trident replacement would be one very positive and popular cutback. Polls consistently show a clear majority against Trident while, at the same time, a growing number of senior military figures have described the system as ‘militarily useless’.
“Presidents Obama and Medvedev are both working towards a nuclear-free world and scrapping Trident would move us towards this goal, improving our security as well as freeing up resources for spending on real priorities, not Cold War relics.”
