With great fanfare and just ahead of the Labour party conference Gordon Brown has launched his contribution to nuclear disarmament on the world – reducing the number of Trident replacement submarines from four to three.
Will champagne corks be popping in the living rooms of peace campaigners across the land tonight? Well, while it may seem churlish to criticise any positive noises being made about nuclear disarmament, the answer is a resounding no. When you look behind the spin at exactly what has been announced it's clear there's little to celebrate.
First up, we are still getting 'like for like replacement'. So rather than scrapping the Cold War relic that is Trident, or even downgrading the system to a cheaper version, the UK is set to stick with replacing Trident (often referred to as a 'Rolls Royce' of a system) with more of the same.
"Labour is still refusing to include Trident in their promised defence review. Apparently decisions on Trident will be made by a 'national security cabinet committee', looking purely at nuclear weapons in isolation from the bigger security picture"
Then there's clearly no change in our nuclear posture. The reduction in the number of submarines is only being made on the basis that new submarines will need less maintenance and refits, so three can do the job previously done by four. So despite vastly changed circumstances in the world, the government is effectively saying that it still believes we MUST have a submarine permanently at sea carrying live nuclear warheads ready to fire.
On top of that there are no substantial cost savings. Greenpeace put out a report last week detailing the cost of building and running a replacement for Trident. We found that it will cost £97bn to build and run a successor system and take up 8.5% of the defence budget year on year. What difference will this loss of one submarine make? The industry say there will be some savings, maybe £5bn, but set against almost £100bn expenditure this is clearly a missed opportunity. A missed opportunity to boost the multilateral disarmament process. And a missed opportunity to free up funds to invest in a green new deal to help avert climate catastrophe.
Another major problem with this announcement is that it makes clear that Labour is still refusing to include Trident in their promised defence review. Apparently decisions on Trident will be made by a 'national security cabinet committee', looking purely at nuclear weapons in isolation from the bigger security picture.
So decisions about Trident's value to our security and whether it is really worth its hefty price tag won't be made in the context of a full review of the real security threats likely to face the UK in coming decades. And they won't be made in the context of a huge hole existing in our national defence budget.
Placed in this context and in the light of the bold moves being made by the President Obama – who's told his security advisors to think of cutting warheads to hundreds rather than thousands - like for like replacement of Trident is a clear failure of nerve.
Economists can see this, the public can see this, and more and more ex military people are coming forward to say it. The fact is that the tide is on the turn for nuclear disarmament and what we need from our politicians is more imaginative leadership, not business as usual dressed up as radical change. If Brown is just testing the waters, then this announcement could be a cause for optimism, but we'll be keeping the champagne on ice until he shows some real ambition.
