Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to ditch all of the UK’s nuclear weapons if he becomes Prime Minister at the next General Election.
According to a book detailing Labour’s manifesto, Corbyn is secretly planning to scrap Trident and pull the UK out of Nato.
Express.co.uk reports: Labour leader Mr Corbyn said it put ideas in a way that “simply would not have happened” a few years ago. Billing the book as “exactly” how Labour would build on the manifesto, the party’s high command clearly endorsed it as a blueprint for its plans going into the next election.
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The book spells out hard-Left policies which will reignite fractious battles within Labour, including:
l Scrapping Trident, our independent nuclear deterrent, fundamentally diminishing the UK’s international standing and cutting thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs.
l Pulling out of Nato and disassociating ourselves from the US, our oldest and strongest ally.
l Abolishing the Prevent programme, which was introduced under the last Labour government and remains a key strand of the Government’s counterterror programme.
l Supporting the NHS Reinstatement Bill, starving it of important services given by charities, social enterprises and other healthcare providers such as Macmillan nurses.
l A Trade Union Freedom Bill, which would reduce the notice required for disruptive strikes.
The Labour leader’s unscheduled book launch appearance last week raised eyebrows as he shared a platform with contributors Chris Williamson, the Labour MP for Derby North, recently fired from the front bench for revealing Labour’s plans to raise council tax, and ex-National Union of Students chief Malia Bouattia, who has faced claims of anti-Semitism.
Tory party deputy chairman James Cleverly said the event was more evidence the hard-Left was mobilising to take control of the Labour Party and the next party manifesto.
“It’s no secret Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have long campaigned to scrap Trident and pull the UK out of Nato, but since taking over the Labour Party both men have pretended they’ve had their minds changed,” he said.
Mr McDonnell said the book “laid the foundations for the debate that we have for the next election” and had a key role to “put a socialist in Number 10”.
Mr Corbyn added: “[This] book, and the thoughts of others, are a way of generating that kind of debate and discussion in a way that a few years ago simply would not have happened.”
Scrapping Trident was opposed by shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith and Len McCluskey, who leads the Unite union, a major Labour donor.
Mr Corbyn first advocated scrapping “Cold War organisation” Nato in 1990. Meanwhile Mr McDonnell said yesterday Labour’s plans to bring services into public ownership would cost “absolutely nothing”.
But critics said that his sums were wrong and the plans would cost taxpayers tens of billions of pounds.
Liz Truss, the Treasury Chief Secretary, said: “Labour would put politicians in charge of running everything from the phone lines to electricity supply, meaning people have nowhere to turn when things go wrong.”
