Scottish Labour has now clarified the party’s position on nuclear weapons. Labour nationally supports Trident renewal, although its leader Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t. Just to make things even more clear, Corbyn wouldn’t push the nuclear button anyway, regardless of whether Trident gets renewed or not. Scotland is different though. It’s leader Kezia Dugdale supports Trident renewal, but Scottish Labour decided today that Trident should not be renewed. I hope I’ve made that clear.
The electorate is just going to love this, isn’t it?
“So what does Labour think about nuclear weapons? Do they want to keep them or not? Yes or no.”
“Well, it’s not quite as simple as that.”
“Which is it? Do they want to get rid of nuclear weapons as well as keeping them?”
“That’s the sum of it, yes.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll vote for Boris Johnson this time.” (I am making what is, quite possibly, a wild assumption here that Osborne’s shambolic handling of the tax credit fiasco will come back to haunt him.)
Corbyn’s unexpected election as leader was always going to bring about problems like this. The party has elected a man who, on so many issues, comes from a different place from most MPs and, I would suggest, the vast majority of the electorate. And here’s another complication. Corbyn, whether he likes it or not, was elected as part of a Labour Party that supports the nuclear deterrent. The leader has the mandate of several hundred thousand party members and supporters, the MPs were voted in by over 9 million people.
There will be a lot more of this in the next few years as Corbyn has taken a different track on a quarter of all parliamentary votes. The man doesn’t do compromise so as leader he could find himself walking through a different lobby to his own party.
Whatever next? Corbyn against staying in the EU and MPs wanting to stay in? Corbyn opposing a no fly zone across parts of Syria and his MPs supporting it? I dread to think what will happen when the Tories put forward plans to replace Trident. Labour decided to kick the subject into the long grass at this year’s Conference, which means that party policy of trident renewal remains in place. If I was Cameron, I’d put the whole thing to the Commons now. Corbyn, as vice president of CND, would be in the ludicrous position of opposing his own party policy as leader.
The Tories, and their many supporters in the media, will be making a note of this shambles for future reference. It’s a long time until 2020 but if Labour carries on like this for much longer, the ammunition at the Tories disposal will be overwhelming. Get a grip, Jeremy. If you can.
