TORY leadership frontrunner Liz Truss has vowed to push ahead with renewing Trident if she wins the keys to Downing Street, as part of plans to “protect the UK”.
The Foreign Secretary has already pledged to boost defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 – a promise her rival Rishi Sunak has refused to match because he says he does not believe in “arbitrary targets” when it comes to security.
The Truss campaign has now set out her plan to “protect the UK”, including a “full renewal” of the nuclear deterrent, an update to the Government’s Integrated Review, and strengthened support for intelligence services.
Truss said her “number one priority” as prime minister would be to keep the nation safe, as the last week of the Tory leadership campaign got underway.
READ MORE: 'Powerful' film showcases history and dangers of Trident - and resistance to it
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“We thought that peace and stability were inevitable – but they aren’t,” Truss said.
“The era of complacency is over. We are living in an increasingly dangerous world and our security is under more threat than it has been in decades.
“We need to make sure that Britain has the deterrents it needs to lead the global efforts to tackle aggression from the likes of Russia and other authoritarian regimes.”
The Foreign Secretary would see through the renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which is “the ultimate guarantee of our sovereignty”, her campaign said.
She would also update the Integrated Review of defence and foreign policy to “reflect the evolving geopolitical landscape and increased malevolent activity that we have seen since it was first published in 2021”.
Truss said the country must rise to a “generation-defining moment for freedom, security and liberty”.
She added: “We simply cannot allow aggressors to think they will go unchallenged.”
Sunak has said he views the Nato defence spending target of 2% of GDP as a “floor and not a ceiling” and noted that spending is set to rise to 2.5% “over time”, but has refused to set “arbitrary” goals.
Speaking at the penultimate leadership hustings in Norwich on Thursday, he said: “If Liz is here, as she probably said in her speech, she will invest 3% of GDP.
“Now, I’m not going to say that, not because I don’t believe in investing in our armed forces, of course I do, and my record demonstrates that.
READ MORE: There is no room for Nato or nuclear weapons in Scotland’s future
“It’s just I don’t believe in arbitrary targets when it comes to something as serious as the security of our realm.”
The SNP have long committed to the removal of Trident nuclear missiles after independence.
The White Paper on independence published ahead of the 2014 independence referendum, promised the “speediest safe withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Scotland”.
In May, Nicola Sturgeon said it was her “expectation and hope” that Trident would be removed from the Faslane naval base on the Clyde in the first Holyrood term after a Yes vote.
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