Trident vote to split Labour as May backs renewal

The Prime Minister will open the Trident debate, her first statement in the Commons since taking office last week, to underline the importance of the issue.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will vote against renewing Trident but he has allowed his MPs a free vote on the issue and around half are expected to vote with the Government.

Mrs May is expected to suggest that the nuclear threat against the UK has increased in recent years.

She will say: “It is impossible to say for certain that no extreme threats will emerge in the next 30 or 40 years to threaten our security and way of life.

“And it would be a gross irresponsibility to lose the ability to meet such threats by discarding the ultimate insurance against those risks in the future.

“Once nuclear weapons have been given up it is almost impossible to get them back – and the process of creating a new deterrent may take decades.

“We cannot compromise on our national security. We cannot outsource the grave responsibility we shoulder for keeping our people safe. And we cannot abandon our ultimate safeguard out of misplaced idealism. That would be a reckless gamble: a gamble that would enfeeble our allies and embolden our enemies. A gamble with the safety and security of families in Britain that we must never be prepared to take.”

Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn will be among those on the Labour benches backing the Government.

He said: “I think the first duty of a Government and a party that aspires to be in Governemnt is to defend the nation and I want to see a world, as [Mr Corbyn] does, with no nuclear weapons.

“The issue has always been, how do you get there, and Britain giving ours up alone would not persuade any of the other nuclear states to do it.

“Who knows what the threats will be in 20 to 30 year time?”

He added: “Would anybody want to live in a world in which nobody has nuclear weapons except North Korea?”