LABOUR leadership contender Andy Burnham has dismissed moves by Labour chiefs north of the Border towards developing a Scottish policy on the renewal of Trident.
Burnham, who arrived in Scotland on Tuesday for a two-day visit, said “there was no room for prevarication” on the matter – insisting it was an issue that needed to be decided by the UK party.
His intervention came just days after new Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale pledged to hold a debate on Trident at the party’s conference in October and her deputy Alex Rowley called for a referendum on the subject.
Rowley told The National on Sunday the £100 billion cost of replacing the weapons system could fund a range of vital public services, including running hospital A&E services for 40 years.
Burnham’s rival for UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to scrap the weapons and retrain the current nuclear workforce.
But Burnham yesterday said Trident is “the ultimate reserved matter”, and said that while the views of the Scottish party would be taken into account, the future of Trident must remain a UK matter.
He said: “Given the way the world is with the unpredictability and the insecurity, I personally believe that this would be the wrong time for Britain to drop its defences.
“These issues are important for security reasons, but of course it would have economic consequences for people in Scotland if we were not to renew Trident.”
He added: “Of course we would hear their voice, but this has to be a UK Labour decision.
“In the end, the UK deterrent is the ultimate reserved matter. This is a decision that affects everybody in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and it has to take account of opinion in all of those places.
“So while we do not shy away from the debate, and there are different views in the Labour Party, in the end the party has to come to a clear position.
“There is no room for prevarication or ambivalence on this question, and it’s a decision that would have to be taken by the Labour Party conference.
“It’s an issue that reflects the logic of the devolution settlement that we have, where matters of utmost national significance as they relate to the whole of the UK remain decisions at a UK level.”
The shadow health secretary also welcomed a suggestion that he is “the modern day John Smith” as he campaigned in the Edinburgh church where the late Labour leader was laid to rest.
Burnham said voters should look to Smith, the Scottish devolution trailblazer whose death in 1994 heralded the start of the Tony Blair era, to understand his own policies.
Around 100 people turned up to the event at Morningside Parish Church in Edinburgh yesterday afternoon – a far cry from the thousands who packed out Corbyn’s Scottish rallies earlier this month.
But the Burnham camp insisted they were pleased with the turnout and said more than 250 Labour members and supporters were due to attend last night’s event in Glasgow.
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