Unilateralism goes in Labour policy review

Press, 11 May 1989, Page 8

Unilateralism goes in Labour policy review

NZPA-Reuter London Britain’s Opposition Labour Party has dropped its vote-losing policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament but has refused to say whether a Labour Government would be ready to press the nuclear button.

The party’s national executive voted 17 to eight on Tuesday yesterday for a new multilateral nuclear policy under which it would keep Britain’s Polaris and Trident nuclear missiles and use them as bargaining chips in East-West arms reduction talks.

The vote, ditching a unilateral policy blamed for Labour’s last two General Election defeats, formed part of a wideranging policy review aimed at breaking the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher’s 10-year grip on power.

But senior party spokespeople refused repeatedly to say if a future Labour Government would use

Trident or Polaris in retaliation against an enemy nuclear strike. “The question you have put is a question that no responsible Government would answer, since the answer would assist any potential adversary,” Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman, Gerald Kaufman, said. “It is a trap question, and I am not going to fall into the trap.”

Mrs Thatcher derided the new policy as “unilateralism in a different wrapping.” The Defence Secretary, George Younger, said: “To arm yourself with a deterrent which you then say you will not use would beabout as effective as a feather duster.” Mr Kaufman said the new defence policy put Labour in tune with Britain’s European N.A.T.O. partners, adding that a Labour Government would aim to reduce short-range missiles in Europe.

Earlier, Labour’s leader, Neil Kinnock, told the party’s executive that the party could no longer follow a unilateral policy that other countries could not understand, let alone support. Under the new policy, Labour would pledge no first use of nuclear weapons and campaign for N.A.T.O. to follow suit. It would aim at scrapping all nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The executive also approved an amendment allowing a Labour government to enter independent bilateral arms talks with the Soviet Union if negotiations between Washington and Moscow were not moving fast enough.' Party Left-wingers said they would fight the new policy, which they see as a betrayal of socialism. Mr Kinnock must now seek approval for it at what could be a stormy party conference next northern autumn.