Spotlight On Labour As MSPs Vote On Trident Motion

Labour MSPs will come under scrutiny as Holyrood votes on nuclear weapons just over 48 hours after the Scottish party endorsed a motion to scrap Trident.

The Scottish Government will lead a debate on Tuesday afternoon urging Westminster to cancel plans for the renewal of the weapons system.

The motion claims it is indefensible for the UK Government to commit billions of pounds of public money to nuclear weapons, particularly when individuals and families across Scotland and the UK are suffering from the consequences of austerity cuts''.

It comes after the Scottish Labour conference in Perth overwhelmingly voted against renewing the Trident nuclear weapon system, putting policy north of the border at odds with the UK party's position.

The vote also means UK leader Jeremy Corbyn and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale have different views from each other and from their own parties.

While Labour's position continues to be to support the continuation of Trident, Mr Corbyn is firmly against nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Ms Dugdale supports multilateral disarmament, even though 70% of votes at the conference were in favour of the UK getting rid of its nuclear deterrent.

The debate divided Labour MSPs, with politicians speaking on both sides of the controversial issue.

While Neil Findlay argued Labour's policy should be one of non-renewal, his parliamentary colleague Jackie Baillie, whose constituency includes the Faslane base, said some 13,000 jobs could be under threat if Trident is scrapped.

She also criticised the SNP, who want to move the submarines from the Clyde, describing the stance as ''nimbyism on a national scale and the worst kind of gesture politics''.

While Scottish Labour policy is now to oppose the renewal of Trident, shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle insisted this did not change UK Labour's stance.

She said: Defence isn't a devolved matter, so Labour Party policy has to be set at a national party level, at a UK level''.

SNP MSP Bill Kidd said: We welcome Scottish Labour's conference vote opposing the renewal of Trident - but the truth is that unless they can convince their colleagues at Westminster to vote against renewal in the House of Commons, their decision will be utterly meaningless.

We now have an absurd situation where the leader of Labour in Scotland supports the renewal of Trident but leads a party that opposes it - while the party's UK leader is opposed to renewal but leads a party that supports it.

Labour's position on Trident is a shambolic, incoherent and chaotic mess. Mr Kidd said only his party hadconsistently opposed nuclear weapons and voted against the renewal of Trident'', and added: Tuesday's debate at Holyrood is a chance for Scotland's national parliament to send a loud and clear message to Westminster that we oppose another generation of weapons of mass destruction based here in Scotland - and I urge MSPs from all parties to join us in sending that message.''

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