Replacing Trident - My Position
I have received a letter from Andrew Gibson, Secretary of Nottingham CND asking me for a public statment on my position on Trident Replacement. Here is the text of my response:
Dear Mr Gibson,
Thank you for your letter asking about my views on whether to proceed with Trident replacement or not.
The Liberal Democrat party position is not to have a like-for like replacement of the current fleet of four Trident submarines on constant patrol but to have a smaller fleet that would only be deployed when required (see http://www.libdems.org.uk/trident).
However my personal position, and how I would vote if elected as MP for Bassetlaw, would be not to replace Trident and to scrap all Trident missiles.
The financial savings made by deciding not to replace Trident should be used to support the areas most affect by such a decision (Barrow & Faslane) in the necessary economic regeneration needed to replace the loss of work caused by such a decision There should also be investment in restructuring our armed forces to meet the growing threat of non-national irregular forces (such as Al Qaida & ISIL) and in making them more capable to be a rapid reaction force for use in major civil disasters around the world.
I am happy for this to be made public and will post the on my own Facebook page (LD4Bassetlaw) and on my campaign website.
Yours sincerely,
Leon Duveen
Liberal Democrat Candidate for Bassetlaw
