Cameron delays Trident vote until after EU referendum – because he can’t fight two battles at once

Last Updated: February 12, 2016By

Royal Navy Vanguard class submarine HMS Vigilant returning to HMNB Clyde after extended deployment. If Trident is ditched, the Scots will be delighted – it means they’ll no longer be a target for nuclear attack [Image: CPOA Thomas McDonald/MoD/Crown copyright].

The Graun has misinterpreted this one.

Cameron can’t really exploit splits in Labour because, once the membership has had its say, it will be clear that there is no split.

Labour’s membership is more or less solidly against renewing Trident because it is a waste of money that would not, in fact, deter anyone who is mad enough to want to launch nuclear missiles against the UK.

No – Cameron wants to delay the vote because he doesn’t want to fight two battles at the same time.

He wants to get the EU referendum out of the way first, and then focus on winning the Trident vote.

In practise, it may be that he won’t even have to bother with Trident at all.

If he loses the referendum vote, that task may fall to his successor.

David Cameron is to delay holding a parliamentary vote on renewing the Trident nuclear weapons programme until after a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, according to senior Whitehall sources.

The prime minister believes that the referendum campaign, which could be in full swing in just over a week’s time, will complicate efforts to build a strong national consensus over the £31bn renewal of the nuclear deterrent.

There had been an expectation that the “maingate” vote to approve the Successor generation of four nuclear submarines would be held in March. But it will be delayed until at least July if the EU referendum is held on the prime minister’s preferred date of 23 June.

The decision to delay the vote will fuel speculation that Downing Street is seeking to exploit Labour divisions over the nuclear weapons programme.

Cameron insists that his focus is on making and winning the argument for renewing the Trident programme. But he believes that Labour’s confused position is helping his campaign to reach out to middle ground voters.

Source: Trident vote to be delayed by David Cameron until after EU referendum | UK news | The Guardian

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No Comments

  1. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) February 12, 2016 at 9:21 am - Reply

    Could someone please explain to me whether we are the only country with nuclear submarines? If America as well as Russia has them why do we need them? I think we need to try to make better friends with Russia and, if America has them, they would retaliate if ever ANY foreign country made the first mad move; or am I just being a naive idiot?

  2. mohandeer February 12, 2016 at 10:11 am - Reply

    I and many other Labour voters intend to vote no on both issues. With regards the EU Germany for instance exports it’s cars to GB as a necessity, they can trade on equal terms with us or lose many £millions boxing clever with trade terms. As for Trident, as one person put it”what on earth for, if we have nukes it makes us a target like all those NATO countries aligned against Russia” and my own thinking “what’s the point in having a big stick to wave at our enemy if we are a pile of ash should we try to wave it”. Cameron truly believes that everyone can be persuaded to think as he does by lying about the pros and cons simply because he has been successfully lying for so long to the “idiots” that he believes are the British people. Offered a referendum, Brits can and will think for themselves and make their own minds up based on evidence from all sources, not bullish sound bytes that give no facts or sources of reference. (Something Cameron has relied on in his responses at PMQ’s). It doesn’t matter whether we stay in the EU with regards Trident as they are 2 completely different issues, he just needs to get his head round that. I hope he loses both referendums, it will pave the way for Brits to start taking the fight to the government and weaken the Tory position mightily, then we can go after him for every cock up his party has made.

  3. Florence February 13, 2016 at 3:34 pm - Reply

    I agree that the Graun have mis-called this. But I suspect that the reason for delaying the Trident decision is the same as the Heathrow runway and everything else he has kicked in to the long grass. If push comes to shove, he’ll get caught out by every side for the lies and deceit, so he is deferring that moment until after he can slip away, as the ex-leader. He hasn’t got the political skill or the support of his own party or the UK as a whole to be able to slide around the way Blair did at his height (and that’s not a compliment).

    The other reason for deferring specifically the Trident decision is that by then we’ll be in the opening stages of WW3, and hence all defence matters will become untouchable, including the “special relationship” with the USA, and so to Trident.

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