Trident and the Lib Dems

During last week's debate, Lib Dem frontman Nick Clegg repeatedly brought up the question of replacing Trident. Jeffrey Lewis interviewed Paul Ingram on the potential implications of Lib Dem strength for the Trident program:

Last Thursday Britain had its first ever election leader TV debate, and it confounded the pundits, not only for being more interesting than anyone expected, not only because it turned out to be a genuinely three-horse contest (why should that be surprising when you put three horses in the track?), but also because little-known Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg (Nick who?) raised the cost of Britain’s Trident replacement plans not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but four times, before the other two were forced to respond. Tory leader David Cameron reluctantly responded with the usual response about defending the UK but committing: “I say we should always have the ultimate protection of our independent nuclear deterrent”, followed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who after describing the need for a united front against potential proliferators, said, “I don’t favour Nick’s proposal which would unilaterally abandon our nuclear deterrent when we know Iran and North Korea and other countries are trying to get…” Since the debate the universal media and public opinion is that Clegg scored a hit on the night (not necessarily on this issue) and the Lib Dems are soaring in the polls. So, is there something exciting going on around Britain’s nuclear deterrent? Could we see some sort of momentum behind a policy shift? What?s the background?

The Lib Dems could end up holding the balance of power, so their opinion is important. But don’t expect an FDP moment — where after last October’s elections Germany’s new Foreign Minister is pushing hard within NATO for the withdrawal of US B-61s from Germany — there is strong cross-party and public support for such a move in Germany where it does not yet exist in the UK. Even in their own party the Lib Dems are badly divided on the issue of what to do, and national representatives have been on all the UK media since the debate clarifying that they are not in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, simply looking for cheaper alternatives to buying UK nukes systems off the US shelf.

For my part, I'm glad that Trident replacement is being debated inter-party forums. I have long believed that the UK's nuclear deterrent is redundant, and that funds would be better spent on maintaining Royal Navy surface and expeditionary capability. The discussion probably won't get to the point of debating the merits of the Queen Elizabeth vs. a Trident replacement, but Clegg's presence at least pushes the strategic debate to the fore.