Labour and the Bomb
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jeremy Corbyn's opposition to the renewal of Britain's nuclear deterrent has opened up divisions within the Labour Party that run very deep. The issue will come to a head when Parliament votes on whether to replace the Trident weapons system, following a recommendation from the Government. While Labour formally reviews its position, will Corbyn be able avoid a damaging split that beset the party in the 1980s?
It was a Labour government which decided to make Britain a nuclear power. "We've got to have this thing, whatever it costs. We've got to have a bloody Union Jack on top of it," declared Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary in the postwar Labour government. Ever since that decision in 1946, the question of whether to keep 'the bomb' has divided the party between those who believe it is the cornerstone of Britain's defence policy within NATO and others who have long campaigned to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Twice before in Opposition the party has opted for unilateral disarmament, only for the policy to be reversed after a period of acrimonious debate and electoral defeat.
In this programme, the veteran political reporter John Sergeant examines Labour's troubled relationship with the bomb. Former party leader Neil Kinnock and other senior figures reflect on how the party discarded unilateralism in the late 1980s and offer advice on what lessons can be learned. Can Jeremy Corbyn overcome opposition with the Parliamentary Labour Party to changing the official policy of multilateral disarmament? Does his recent suggestion of maintaining submarines without nuclear missiles satisfy those who want Britain to disarm come what may?
Producer: Peter Snowdon.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading analysis. The Labour Party's engaged in a furious struggle over its policy on nuclear weapons and not for the first time. |
| 0:09.0 | John Sergeant, the BBC's former chief political correspondent, looks back at the history of this divisive |
| 0:14.2 | issue and asks why it's been so problematic for the left. The power of nuclear weapons on the battlefield has never been in doubt, |
| 0:28.0 | but the effect they're having on the politics of the Labour Party is now causing despair among leading labor figures. |
| 0:35.0 | Under Jeremy Corbyn, the party is once again driven with dissent on the nuclear |
| 0:40.0 | issue. |
| 0:41.0 | Argument about policy is one thing. It is quite another... issue. issue may be much harder than it was in the past, because this time it's personal. |
| 0:57.0 | For many of those supporting the renewal of Trident, there's an overriding political argument. |
| 1:04.0 | Unless Labour supports it, they believe there's no chance of them winning the next election. |
| 1:10.0 | No party can win a national United Kingdom election if it sustains a stance which means unilateral nuclear disarmament. |
| 1:21.0 | The British public have never been and are never |
| 1:24.2 | going to be unilateral disarmers. It's just something that you could never sign them up |
| 1:30.4 | for. The labor part of the British electorate, albeit declining, is still in favour of multilateralism. |
| 1:38.0 | Neokinnock, Peter Mandelson and Martin O'Neill, all in the House of Lords and all veterans on the winning |
| 1:45.9 | side of the last time that Labour threatened to tear itself apart over nuclear policy in the |
| 1:51.9 | 1980s, the last time but not the first. |
| 1:57.0 | For Britain's first hydrogen bomb is about to be exploded. |
| 2:01.0 | From this day Britain will rank beside America and Russia as a major nuclear power. |
| 2:06.0 | From the moment that the white-painted valiant bomber takes off with its deadly load, |
| 2:10.0 | Britain is no longer dependent on anyone for this ultimate deterrent. |
| 2:15.0 | From the moment that politicians realise that the ultimate weapon had been invented, |
| 2:20.0 | which could threaten not just nations, but civilization itself, the seeds of this party |
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