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Trident

What I do remember is that the right hon. Lady supported the document before the national executive, as did Robin Cook. At that time, when we were considering these matters, the German Foreign Minister said to me:"““agreements are better than unilateral moves because they can be verified and cannot be reversed.””" That, of course, was after the Labour party’s disastrous defeat in the 1983 general election on a manifesto that I called"““the longest suicide note in history””." That, of course, was when my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Kinnock was still hoping to become Prime Minister rather than a twice-failed Leader of the Opposition. And that, of course, was before India, Pakistan and North Korea had become nuclear weapons powers. That shift of policy removed an insuperable barrier to the Labour party’s electoral credibility. Without it, many of my hon. Friends would not be in this House today, including some who may be contemplating voting against the Government this evening. Do those hon. Friends really believe that our shared objective of world nuclear disarmament can be achieved by unilateral disarmament by Britain? Do they really believe that if we gave up Trident, the eight other nuclear weapons powers would say, ““Good old Britain! They have done the right thing. We must follow suit.””? Pull the other one!