by Kevin Meagher
The hashtag meme #earliestpoliticalmemory, doing the rounds on Twitter the other day, got me thinking. Mine was probably my mother taking me on a ‘Women Against the Bomb’ sit-down protest on the steps of Bolton Town Hall when I was five or six.
Since then, I’ve held a pretty mainstream view that abhors the existence of nuclear weapons, but like most political pragmatists, I cleave towards multilateralism as a response; that is to say: ‘We’ll scrap ours when you scrap yours’.
The obvious flaw, of course, is that no-one wants to make the first move. And, so, nearly thirty years after the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons endure.
But if we scrap ours first, will the Russians, Chinese, Americans, Israelis, Pakistanis, Indians and others be equally willing to bash their missiles into ploughshares?
Anyone who thinks they would should reflect on how hard it is to get buy-in from many of the same countries for concerted action on global warming, or dealing with terrorism. The moral clarity with which unilateralists see the issue simply is not shared by the hard men of Russia and China. Gesture politics counts for little alongside realpolitik.
Unilateralism is therefore a well-meant but hopelessly naïve position. A quixotic non-engagement with hard reality.
That’s not intended as a slight. All reasonable people can agree that the ability to lay waste to entire countries and obliterate hundreds of millions of people is an objective moral evil.
But so is leaving the field clear for despots to possess nuclear weapons.
If we want to maintain the high stakes, zero-sum global status quo that promises mutually-assured destruction if any nuclear power fires a nuke, then we need to hang on to the wretched things, as we did during the long, tense decades of the Cold War.
Can more be done to rid the world of these infernal creations? Emphatically, yes. Has ridding the world of nuclear weapons slipped down the international agenda? Most certainly. Should Labour espouse a more muscular multilateralism? Definitely.
But the party is seemingly drifting down the path to unilateralism instead. Moreover, it is clear that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters see this as an article of faith, regardless of last year’s conference decision to maintain the party’s current multilateralist position, and they will galvanise the new, more radical, grassroots members to effect a change.
This will, of course, be a political disaster for Labour. Already, as many as seven out of ten voters do not trust Jeremy Corbyn to safeguard national security. So the electoral implications are dire enough, but what are the practical consequences if Labour were to win an election making good on its pledge to scrap Trident?
Would Vladmir Putin suddenly do likewise, dismantling his missiles and submarines before bursting into a ropey rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine? Or would he smell Western weakness and roll his tanks into Ukraine?
Most obviously, the loss of Britain’s membership of the nuclear club means we would inevitably relinquish our seat as one of the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council. Either that, or we would have to step up defence spending on conventional weapons and risk more regular deployments of troops around the globe’s trouble spots in order to make up the shortfall.
Of course, if you’re Ken Livingstone, it’s fine if Britain becomes a ‘bit part player’ in global affairs. But who replaces us as a voice for democracy and human rights at the top table? A diminished Britain means a diminished voice for reason in the inner counsels of global diplomacy.
Then there’s the argument – the phoney argument – about the costs of renewing Trident. Phoney because the financial implications of maintaining a nuclear deterrent are utterly secondary: You either believe nuclear weapons are necessary to deal with the world as it is – rather than how we would want it to be – and are willing to pick up the inevitable costs; or you think nukes are wrong in principle and we should not possess them, in which case their cost is irrelevant.
For the record, it’s worth bearing in mind that total government spending this year is £760bn. Estimates for the costs of replacing Trident vary, but come in at around £600 million a year for 30 years, with running costs of around £2 billion a year.
So roughly a third of one per cent of total government spending per annum.
And although probably not the kind of scheme your average Keynesian has in mind, the GMB union estimates there are ‘tens of thousands’ of jobs dependent on Trident, many highly-skilled and in poor and remote parts of the country (like West Cumbria where the nuclear subs are built and Rosyth in Scotland were they are docked).
Realpolitik is seldom a good look – especially when pitted against the moral clarity and simplicity of ‘Scrap Trident’ – but it’s still a valid consideration. Labour should think long and hard about embracing unilateral nuclear disarmament, surrendering so much diplomatic influence in the process, as well as horrifying the British electorate, who are frightened enough at the deteriorating state of global security.
So I would still willingly sit and join-in calls for a world free from nukes, but it’s how we achieve that elusive goal that remains at issue. Muscular multilateralism is something Labour should push for, but unilateralism is the most vapid and dangerous form of gesture politics there is.
Kevin Meagher is associate editor of Uncut
Tags: CND, Jeremy Corbyn, Kevin Meagher, nuclear weapons, Trident, unilateralism
What does muscular multi-lateralism actually mean? Does Kevin believe that Trident makes any difference whatsoever to other countries? It does not unless they are thinking of dropping a nuclear weapon on the UK!
What does unilateralism actually mean?
The problem for Labour is that they have a leader that defaults to the SWP view of security. As they have no mainstream economic policy people don’t believe that any financial gains about scrapping Trident would be squandered anyway.
Cameron’s stomping all over them.
“The obvious flaw, of course, is that no-one wants to make the first move.”
South Africa did, almost 3 decades ago.
“Would Vladmir Putin suddenly do likewise, dismantling his missiles and submarines before bursting into a ropey rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine? Or would he smell Western weakness and roll his tanks into Ukraine?”
He did roll his tanks into Ukraine. And annexed Crimea. And shot down an airliner. Likewise, our nuclear weapons didn’t stop Argentina invading.
“the ability to lay waste to entire countries and obliterate hundreds of millions of people is an objective moral evil.
But so is leaving the field clear for despots to possess nuclear weapons.”
So, we admit to being objectively morally evil by possessing them? Other people are bad, so it’s ok for us to be bad, is that the gist of it?
“A diminished Britain means a diminished voice for reason in the inner counsels of global diplomacy.”
Are we a voice of reason? Really? Exactly what has HMG done in, say, the last 20 years to back up the idea of being a voice of reason? Are we actually “the good guys” here? Just think of how we look from a foreign perspective – a hypocritical and dangerous joke wouldn’t be far off at the moment. Step outside the UK bubble and you quickly find that the rest of the world doesn’t exactly share our opinion of ourselves. The idea that continuing to possess the capability to ruin global civilisation enhances our prestige and respectability is a curious one.
There is presumably a decent argument somewhere for possessing WMD’s. It’s certainly not in this article.
“Most obviously, the loss of Britain’s membership of the nuclear club means we would inevitably relinquish our seat as one of the permanent members of the UN’s Security Council.”
You have let slip what you really care about here, haven’t you?
But this is wrong anyway as Britain was a permanent member before it had nuclear weapons.
“But the party is seemingly drifting down the path to unilateralism instead.”
I certainly hope that your fears are well-founded.
You see, governments make unilateral decisions all the time. The Conservatives unilaterally abandoned chemical weapons and Blair unilaterally scrapped landmines.
In both cases, this helped us to get a global ban on such weapons.
We can now apply the same principle to nuclear weapons by cancelling plans to replace Trident.
This article actually justifies any country that wants nukes to be able to have them.
And the GMB are playing games. If we scrapped Trident and it’s subs, those workers – and their children after them, would be involved in decommissioning work.
Scraping Trident would be good policy, showing that Labour is prudent in its spending plans.
Sorry but any party with Labour’s current Leader and Shadow Chancellor have very little credibility on anything – except on how to talk to terrorists… which they appear to have engaged in a lot during their spell on the backbenches.
And with Lady Nugee in charge of the defence policy review, we all know what the result will be. No Trident, cut defence spending and give back the Falklands.
And then Labour wonder why they trail in the polls…or don’t care…
The sooner we stop playing international policeman, the better and cheaper it will be. We have no influence. Its just willy waving. Cut the lot.
I agree with the main argument of this article but what are Labour Moderates/Centrists/Right Wingers going to do about it ? What can they do when The Left have The Leadership & most of the members behind them ? Its time to admit that Labour has no place for its “Right Wing” any more & that includes most of its current MPs.
Mike Homfray,I’m sure the Appeasers called Churchill a Willy waver
Well of course, just because something is a right and sensible policy, people shouldn’t promote it and campaign for it if 70% of the voters oppose it. That’s what made Labour great. Legalising homosexuality, abolishing hanging, introducing the NHS, getting nuclear bombs in the 1940’s – none of these were popular when first suggested. If only we lived in a world where people can change their opinions.
Dave,
The only country to give up its nuclear weapons was Ukraine, and as you said Putin’s tanks rolled in.
Yes, Argentina invaded the Falklands, but since Argentina is a not a nuclear armed country, there was never a chance that they would use nuclear weapons against the UK, and so the nuclear option was off the table.
Putin has not used his nuclear weapons against Turkey (another non-nuclear country), even though they shot down a Russian aircraft, for the same reason.
Labour party policy – rather like Assyrian government policy – past it’s sell-by date. Let’s hope Corbyn will succeed in updating it. Dave and Tony and similar above are correct. Trident is only a penis substitute to keep the also-past-it’s-sell-by-date UK at the top table. Immoral and obscene.
PS. Significant that this web site accepts “Bliar” as it’s anti spam answer!