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posted by n1 on Monday July 25 2016, @09:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the mad-world dept.

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):

Conservatives - 330
Labour - 230
SNP - 54
DUP - 8
Lib Dems - 8

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @04:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @04:02PM (#380335)

    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.