Jeremy Corbyn’s closest ally John McDonnell says he would never fire nuclear weapons – even to protect the UK
The Shadow Chancellor is in agreement with the Labour leader that there was no situation in which he would use our Trident deterrent system
LABOUR was branded a “threat of the nation” after Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor said he’d never use nukes to defend Britain.
Self-styled Marxist John McDonnell echoed his boss to rule out every pressing the nuclear button as PM.
Asked by the New Statesman if he would act, he said: “No.”
And the veteran left-winger said the Government should not even have had the weapons during the Cold War. He added ex-Labour PM Clement Atlee had been wrong to order the nuclear bomb after WWII.
Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis stormed: “The whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it.
“That both Corbyn and McDonnell say they would not use it as a last resort shows Labour cannot be trusted with the defence of our nation and aren’t fit for Government.”
Mr Corbyn sparked uproar three years ago by saying he would instruct the UK’s defence chiefs never to use the Trident nuclear weapons system if he became PM. Asked if would use nuclear weapons as PM he replied: “No.”
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Just months later, he was ridiculed for suggesting he could order new Trident submarines to keep the fleet in place – but without replacement nuclear weapons.
The Shadow Chancellor separately told New Statesman that Karl Marx’s Communist tract Das Kapital was his favourite book. He insisted his historical support for the IRA was about “trying to bring peace” to Ireland.
In 2003, he famously praised the “bombs and bullets and sacrifice” made by IRA members such as Bobby Sands for “bringing Britain to the negotiating table”.
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