Lib Dems oppose Trident replacement

In an interview with The Guardian, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said that such a powerful nuclear weapon is not needed in the post-Cold War world, while the deteriorating public finances mean Britain can no longer afford it.

"New leadership in Russia, new leadership obviously in the White House and a wider geostrategic appreciation means that a Cold War missile system designed to penetrate Soviet defences and land in Moscow and St Petersburg at any time, in any weather, from any location anywhere round the planet, is not our foremost security challenge now," he said.

"We have got to be grown-up and honest about it. Given that we need to ask ourselves big questions about what our priorities are, we have arrived at the view that a like-for-like Trident replacement is not the right thing to do," he went on.

He dismissed suggestions that Britain's permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council depends upon its nuclear deterrent as "nostalgic, sepia-tinted phooey".

Mr Clegg said that while he had asked former party leader Sir Menzies Campbell to look at whether Britain could operate a scaled-down deterrent, it would be an "unhappy event" if his review led to the UK retaining a nuclear capability.

He did however suggest that it could be possible to equip the Navy's new Astute class submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missiles or that Britain could follow Japan's example and retain a stockpile of fissile material which could be weaponised within six to 24 months.

Mr Clegg, who clashed with his defeated rival Chris Huhne when he called for Trident to be abandoned during the party leadership contest in 2007, acknowledged that he had now changed his views on the issue.

"I have grappled with this, because it is not where I started in my leadership. But the world has changed, the facts have changed, you've got to change with them. So like-for-like replacement for Trident is just not right," he said.