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Trident

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I should like to continue. The only way in which we can give a lead in world nuclear disarmament is to sit down with the others and to engage in hard bargaining. That, after all, is how we achieved success at the Brussels climate change talks last week. Britain did not achieve that success by being absent or by opposing European Union membership—as we did, let us not forget, in the longest suicide note, long before our active and co-operative United Kingdom membership of the European Union enabled my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Kinnock to become a European Commissioner. The Climate Change Bill on its own, however admirable, cannot bring about world action to remedy climate change. That requires international co-operation. Voting tonight to give up Trident will not persuade Israel and North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. Their threat will remain until international action is taken to reduce and remove nuclear weapons. In my speech to the Labour party conference commending our defence document, I said:"““A move by a Labour government to get rid of nuclear weapons without agreement internationally could be reversed by a non-Labour government.””" Defeating the Government tonight—which is what must be the intention, in all honesty, of anyone who votes against them—could so reduce our party’s credibility as to contribute to a Labour defeat at the next election. Do my hon. Friends really believe that there is the slightest hope of a Tory Government not renewing Trident, given the opportunity, or of a Tory Government taking active steps towards international nuclear disarmament? A cartoon in The New Yorker once showed an army officer in a bunker saying to his assembled troops:"““Gentlemen, the time has arrived for us to make a futile gesture.””" Futile gestures can be personally satisfying, but what do they get us? I will tell the House what they get us: 18 years in opposition. It is one thing to revisit the scene of the crime; it is quite another to revisit the scene of the suicide.