Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of reversing the party’s backing for Trident this spring have suffered a big blow, after the party’s general secretary said there could be no change to its policymaking process before September.
Labour official Iain McNicol told MPs at a parliamentary meeting that any changes to the way policy was made had to be agreed at the party’s autumn conference.
This development is a big setback to suggestions that the party’s membership could play a role in policy formation ahead of a vote on replacing the Vanguard-class submarines, which is expected before June.
Trident refers to the Vanguard-class submarines carrying nuclear weapons that are constantly on patrol.
Mr Corbyn had said that he wanted ordinary people to have just as much say in his party’s stance on renewing the nuclear deterrent as his shadow cabinet.
During an interview with the BBC's Today programme, in which he also refused to say he would authorise a drone strike on IS terrorists, “Couldn’t Britain play a part in bringing about a nuclear-free world? Let’s get the discussion and debate out there. I want members to have a big say in it. Whether that comes as a vote of individual members, or a vote at conference, that will be decided. I have not made up my mind on that.
“My whole election programme was based on the need for ordinary people to be able to participate much more in politics, so that leaders don’t go away and write policy, so that executive groups don’t go off and decide what the policy is, ordinary people do.”
He added that “there is a brilliance in everyone who has ideas” and said that there is a need for “a serious, intelligent debate” about the role that nuclear weapons play in the 21st century.
Corbyn said he was considering how to change the Labour’s policy on the issue, which currently supports the renewal of Britain’s fleet of four Trident ballistic missile submarines. He had said the party policy will either be determined by an individual vote with members or a vote at party conference.
He told the Today programme, “Any policy has to be comprehensive, it has to start from the basis that we are signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, itself a creation of the 1960s Labour Government of the Harold Wilson, and there also has to be a policy of what we do to ensure protection of skills and jobs throughout British industry that are in some part reliant on the whole Trident nuclear programme.
“Renewing Trident, in my view, goes against the fundamental spirit of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which requires the five declared nuclear states not to renew their nuclear weapons systems.”
Sir Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB, warned Corbyn that his union would fight to ensure that the Labour party maintained its support for the Trident programme.
The fallout from the reshuffle continued on Monday as Catherine McKinnell, the shadow attorney general, resigned from Labour’s frontbench. The MP cited “concerns about the direction and internal conflict” within the party, as well as family commitments and a desire to prioritise her constituents for the move. McKinnell was the fourth person to resign from the opposition frontbench in the past week.
