Scrap Trident, voters tell Brown

[muriel_volestrangler]

The public wants Britain to scrap the Trident nuclear missile system but believes spending on health and education should rise each year, according to a ComRes poll for The Independent.

By a margin of 58 to 35 per cent, people believe that the £25bn renewal of the Trident programme should be abandoned because of the state of the public finances. The finding will strengthen the hand of ministers who are pressing Gordon Brown to cancel or delay the scheme as Labour prepares to unveil public spending cuts.

Ministers have told The Independent that there is growing support for switching money from the Trident programme to reducing public debt and improving equipment for British troops, especially given the rise in the death toll among servicemen in Afghanistan in recent months.

The Liberal Democrats have already come out against renewing Trident. Labour and the Tories support it but admit it will have to be reviewed because of soaring public debt. Support for ditching Trident is strongest among people who intend to vote Liberal Democrat (63 per cent) and Labour (61 per cent), while Tory voters are evenly divided (48 to 47 per cent in favour of scrapping it).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/scrap-trident-voters-tell-brown-1783443.html

Would he dare reverse so long-standing a policy? Is this the kind of bold but popular move that would be the thing to reinvigorate Labour standings in the polls? I can't see much else getting them back up in time for the nexr election.

[oldironside]

1. IMO there are two practical questions here...

1. Does a nation like Britain really need new super nuclear missiles with go faster stripes? The only possible reason could be because it gives us the illusion of still being a great power deserving a seat at the top table. As Ben Elton once put it, if we're the bloke in the shell suit, Trident is our Rottweiler.
2. Could the collective British ego handle the shock of admitting that we are now just a second rate power and don't have the military or economic clout to influence world events? We'll have to face up to it sooner or later, and judging by the poll findings even the Tory mainstream is starting to see that.

£25 billion is a hell of a lot of money for a country like the UK to lay out on such a horrendous white elephant - and that's without the inevitable price hikes as the project continues. Just think of the infrastructure we could buy for that, and the executives in the military industrial complex we'd be depriving of bonuses. Win/win?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. Nuclear weaponry is useless for UK power projection

It's use would bring destruction to all those involved. Other countries have given up nuclear weapons and it's not like anyone has taken them out with nukes.

The UK is still considered a "Great Power" by just having the fifth largest economy, and nuclear disarmament wouldn't diminish this - in fact it would bring economic benefits by recouping the social wealth that goes into the black hole of nuclear weaponry.

Would he dare reverse so long-standing a policy? Is this the kind of bold but popular move that would be the thing to reinvigorate Labour standings in the polls? I can't see much else getting them back up in time for the nexr election.

It would give him a bump in popularity, but it wouldn't be sustained unless he took other progressive-popular steps too. I don't really think he's got the political bottle to do it. It would be interesting to see Labour bringing an anti-nuclear facet to a General Election manifesto which would have Davey Cameron umming and ahhing over his 'commitment' to green-populism. Cameron would have difficulty matching policy as the Tory right wouldn't be having it.