Leftists for Trident

Tony Benn said a few years ago: "I admire Clement Attlee - a modest man who carried through a huge programme of reform after the war."

I agree; and the single most important expression of the Attlee government's democratic socialist ideals was its foreign policy. Labour recognised the threat to liberty from Soviet totalitarianism, and the necessity of a system of collective security under which the United States would commit itself to the defence of Western Europe. The Nato alliance was to a significant extent the creation, in conception at least, of Attlee's Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. It has a fair claim to being the most successful progressive movement in history. A voluntary alliance founded on the ideals of collective action and internationalist solidarity, Nato helped secure the liberation of Eastern Europe from tyranny, and more recently stopped the genocidal aggression of Slobodan Milosevic. But before the creation of Nato, when nobody could be certain that the United States would correctly perceive its interests in the defence of Western Europe, Attlee did the right thing too in authorising the development of a British independent nuclear deterrent.

There is a certain historical aptness that, 60 years later, another Labour government should be continuing Attlee's policies by proposing the renewal of Britain's nuclear deterrent almost to the middle of this century. I support this policy, for reasons I've argued here and here. I will be arguing this case today with Kate Hudson, chairman of CND, on Sky News at 10.30am; and with the disarmament campaigner Rebecca Johnson on BBC News 24 at 3.30pm. I have written about Ms Hudson here. It's worth bearing in mind that Ms Hudson is a member of the Communist Party of Britain, which declares its solidarity with North Korea - so she may not feel quite the apprehension that I do at the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of that totalitarian nightmare-state.