At prime minister's questions on Wednesday, in what he thought was a lambast at Jeremy Corbyn's appointment of nuclear WMD opponent Emily Thornberry as shadow defence secretary, David Cameron spluttered: "Frankly, it goes to a bigger truth: one day, I suppose this reshuffle will be over, and we will be left with a collection of politicians—be in no doubt about this—who have signed up to unilateral nuclear disarmament." (6 January 2016
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm160106/debtext/160106-0001.htm#16010634000008/)
In fact, the only form of nuclear disarmament that any government - Tory, Coalition or Labour - has indulged is what Mr Cameron disparagingly calls "unilateral."
As Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood dressed up the unilateralist admission in a written Parliamentary answer to Labour veteran CND supporter, Paul Flynn MP, a month ago, stating: "The UK National Report submitted in February in advance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference set out steps we have taken to support the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. ...We have also met our commitment to reduce the number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120. We have worked to strengthen the international non-proliferation regime, most notably through our role in securing an agreement involving strict limits and inspections on Iran's nuclear programme." (answer 17553, 1 December)
When will the multilateralism start?
No comments:
Post a Comment