Burnham commits to increase defence spending by billions

Royal Navy Vanguard Class submarine HMS Vigilant, which currently carries Trident ballistic missiles (Pic: Flickr)

Andy Burnham has vowed to spend billions on nuclear weapons.

Only a day after he said funding social care would require “difficult choices,” Burnham committed himself to throw away billions on replacing Trident nukes.

Burnham visited Barrow-in-Furness this week, where the weapons are made, to launch the next phase of the Trident nuclear submarine replacement programme.

Burnham claims that the £31 billion Dreadnought-class subs show how military investment can regenerate local communities.

“Keeping this country safe is the first responsibility of any government,” he said. “But security is not only about what we build—it is about who builds it, and who benefits from it.”

Number 10 also claims that the Dreadnought programme will create 18,000 extra jobs in nuclear defence by 2030, on top of 30,000 jobs already attached to the nuclear industry.

Burnham has been in office for a week. He has already backed a commitment to increase Nato defence spending by over £25 billion a year to reach 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035.

The new Dreadnought submarines can carry 40 nuclear warheads—enough destructive power to destroy Moscow and several other major Russian cities. But Britain is at far greater risk of climate catastrophe than it is of the Russians launching an invasion.

Burnham voted for Trident in 2016 when the issue split the Labour Party. Unions such as Unite, then led by Len McCluskey, called on MPs to vote for Trident, while then leader Jeremy Corbyn opposed the replacement.

The largest share of the latest phase of work, worth £5.9 billion, in the Dreadnought programme is being awarded to BAE Systems, which owns the Barrow shipyard.

BAE systems arms factories have been the target of repeated protests over the companies’ sale of weaponry to Israel during the genocide in Gaza.

The Dreadnought programme is so complex it includes a £10 billion contingency to cover overspends. It has already been placed on amber alert by government monitors.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) general secretary Sophie Bolt said, “Spending billions of pounds on nuclear weapons is not keeping us safe.

“British bases like RAF Fairford are now a target because the government has continued to allow Trump to use this base to illegally bomb Iran.

“The argument that Burnham is making—that more money for nuclear and military spending will revitalise the economy—is totally false.

Burnham’s promises of jobs and regeneration will not be fulfilled by wasting money on Trident. CND estimates that the true cost of the Trident replacement will be more like £205 billion than the government’s projected £31 billion.

£205 billion could pay for 120 state of the art hospitals with 150,000 new nurses, or three million affordable homes.

Nor will Trident “keep us safe”—it only fuels the new arms race that makes the world more dangerous.

Burnham’s pledge to increase the nuclear arsenal will only exacerbate the danger of nuclear proliferation.

Nor do nuclear weapons create jobs. The government claims Trident already supports around 30,000 jobs. But this figure includes people serving in the military.

CND estimates that 11,520 civilian jobs are directly dependent on Trident. Jobs matter but £205 billion can be used far more effectively to create secure and social useful jobs.

The government could employ 11,500 workers at an average annual wage of £34,400 for less than £400 million a year. The £205 billion allocated to Trident replacement would sustain these jobs for over 500 years.

Or every civilian worker in the Trident programme could be given a cheque for £1 million for a cost of £11.5 billion—a little more than one-twentieth of the entire cost of replacing Trident.

Burnham should not put billions into the pockets of BAE systems who are complicit in Israel’s genocide.

The world does not need any more weapons. The money should go on health care and education and developing green energy.