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Just prior to retiring, the UK's former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron arranged for a parliamentary vote on whether the Trident nuclear-armed submarine programme should be renewed.
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn is opposed to nuclear weapons, having said "I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about international relations." However, some Labour MPs support Trident; Corbyn has made this a free vote.
The submarines operate out of a base at Faslane in Scotland. All the MPs belonging to the Scottish National Party, which advocates Scottish independence, are opposed to Trident. One asked the prime minister: "Is she personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that can kill a hundred thousand innocent men, women and children?” and her answer was:
Yes. And I have to say to the honourable gentleman the whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it, unlike some suggestions that we could have a deterrent but not actually be willing to use it, which seem to come from the Labour party frontbench.
One Conservative MP who is opposed to Trident criticised his own party when he said "This is a political weapon aimed rather effectively at the Labour party."
The Guardian has a page with updates on the vote. It has the text of the motion and lists the number of parliamentary seats held by each party (links added by submitter):
The motion passed by 472 votes to 117. It seems likely that it had the support of nearly all Conservative MPs and a sizable fraction of Labour.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday July 25 2016, @10:17PM
The whole point of BrExit was the UK deciding a slow slide into insignificance was a lousy way to go, that they wanted to try actually being a real country again and see if they still had what it takes to stand in the world as an equal. And if you want to be in the elite club we all understand what that requires now. If you can't add the "and our words are backed with nuclear weapons." text to all of your negotiations the other players won't really take you seriously.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday July 25 2016, @11:24PM
Well, they jolly well better find a way of home porting the lot in Bristol.
Sane people in Scotland shall be headed towards their own "Brexit" from the UK. Alba shall be abandoning those Tory twats. Sassanach Saxons, the lot. Always were Germans, if you scrape down deep enough, all stiff knees and stiff arms. Goosestepping across history at the expense of real Britons, otherwise content with suet puddings and versifying.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by butthurt on Tuesday July 26 2016, @02:21AM
The UK is a member of NATO. She is allied with her former enemies, France and the United States, both of which are nuclear-armed (specifically, both have submarines carrying ballistic missiles).
The signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [cfr.org] declared their intention "to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament"; the result of this vote seems at odds with that.
Whatever the motivations for Brexit itself may be, Mr. Cameron's motivation for the Brexit referendum, in my opinion, was for the Tories to gain short-term political advantage. As I mentioned in the summary, the same has been said of this vote he arranged on Trident.
Your main point seems to be that countries are taken more seriously in international dealings when they possess nuclear weapons: that being armed that way is of advantage to them. Carrying out an independent programme to develop nuclear weapons takes substantial resources. Having those resources without carrying out such a programme might qualify a country to be taken seriously.
I'd say South Korea is doing much better in its international relations than is North Korea. South Africa seems to be doing better now in its international relations than when it was a nuclear weapons state. Nuclear weapons aren't the key factor that makes "a real country."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @03:59AM
If South Korea had decided to develop nuclear weapons, would the US be as happy with them as they are now. A Convenient counter to China and North Korea. Or would they be treated as just another Asian nuclear power to be feared and 'contained'?
Same could be said for Japan. You dont have to worry about a country getting out of hand if you can threaten them with impunity. But if they can defend themselves, then all bets are off.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday July 26 2016, @07:53AM
Since Japan was bombed, there hasn't been another nuclear attack. That looks to me like something short of impunity.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 26 2016, @12:05PM
Since Japan was bombed, there hasn't been another nuclear attack.
Genocide strategies have changed with the times. Nobody is interested in old fashioned nuclear weapons anymore. Its all about the open borders.
Lets say we had open borders 70 years ago. Young Japanese men swarm into new england and Wash DC area because "we must help all migrant displaced by WWII". Sure they occasionally act like the invading army that they are; beheading the natives, raping their women. But western governments don't represent or protect western citizens, only the rich and corporations. So... you seriously think they nuke Hiroshima when there's millions of migrants already killing the natives? Lets continue the analogy and millions of blonde hair blue eyed young German men swarm across the border into London... if Dresden were firebombed, how many minutes until London would go up in flames?
Wiping out western civilization looks a lot more like Sweden than like Nagasaki. And its in progress right now.
What good is a nuke if every possible target is a protected locally politically active group with higher social status than your own people?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @03:00PM
We can still nuke Muslims though right? We can be racist about them cause they're terrorists.
How about Blacks?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @04:02PM
If the US decides to nuke them again, what's to stop them? The UN?
With their own nukes it would be a little trickier.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @04:14PM
(If it matters, I'm not British.)
The UK is a member of NATO. She is allied with her former enemies, France and the United States, both of which are nuclear-armed (specifically, both have submarines carrying ballistic missiles).
As I recall, Ukraine was given numerous promises by various world powers (including the US) that if they disarmed their nuclear weapons they would be protected if they came under attack. We saw how effective that promise was.
Plus now US Republican Nominee Donald Trump has started making overtures about how he wouldn't automatically defend all members of NATO. (Granted that statement can be exaggerated, but it was still made.)
Saying that the UK's independent nuclear threat is redundant is a bit much, in my opinion.
The signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty declared their intention "to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament"; the result of this vote seems at odds with that.
There is the cynical statement (which may or may not be true) of "that's just a feel-good piece of paper with no teeth behind it" one could make.
There is also the lawyerly statement (which may or may not be true) of "unilateral disarmament is not an 'effective measure,' and is arguably counterproductive to international disarmament."
If somebody wanted to argue that keeping Trident was not violating the non-proliferation treaty, I think there is enough wiggle room for an international political perspective. (For example, the British Museum still hasn't given back the parts of the Parthenon which it is keeping as artifacts of "world heritage.")
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 26 2016, @10:17AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Tuesday July 26 2016, @04:41PM
Slow slide into insignificance? Hell, no! We'll do it the British way with a stiff upper lip and grasp that greasy pole descending into insignificance with both hands! We'll even grease our hands first to slide down it quicker to show just how forthright and brave we are!
Trident is a colossally wasteful pile of bollocks that needs to be consigned to history. It's a weapon of retaliatory last resort, i.e. the rest of the proles would be dead before the serving prime minister is in a position to press the button. The vote on Trident wasn't required yet and as such it's more a vote to continue thinking about voting; the entire exercise was supposed to exploit divisions in the Labour party, but they're so divided anyway and intent on shooting themselves in all available limbs that it caused barely a ripple. No-one in power gives a shit about Trident. Various groups of arseholes give reasons why it's important (e.g. Britain still counts for something, job losses at the firms that will build Trident v2, etc) but ultimately, no-one with any power has any vested interest in this shite apart from them being given some sort of inducement to vote yes.
Spend the money on the armed forces, the NHS and building new houses. We do not need four floating white elephants to show how awesome we are.