Scotland, April 02: Liberal Democrat Minister of State for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey has called for a joint nuclear deterrent with France to save Britain billions of pounds and change defence strategy.
Harvey has called for an Anglo-French replacement for Britain’s nuclear weapons on Friday. His proposal has been warmly received by the French ambassador as both countries face defence budget pressure.
In February 2010, the former chief of General Staff General Sir Richard Dannat said Britain does not need to have nuclear deterrent within 10 years time.
Britain can have at least one ballistic missile submarines always at seas, fully armed.
France and Britain maintain four nuclear submarines, each armed with 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles minimum and over 40 warheads.
Britain agreed to replace its Trident nuclear fleet after the next election.
“The UK needs to revisit the case in the long term for the UK maintaining a permanent 24-7 at sea capability. We pay an enormous premium to maintain this. It is quite feasible that we could continue with a permanent at sea submarine patrol in conjunction with the French either with three British submarines as proposed to the current four,” Harvey said.
The decision might bring up the Conservative defence secretary’s anger. Liam Fox, being concern about loss of national sovereignty, may disagree with the idea.
Harvey said: “We would be able to maintain separate command operations. It is unlikely we would face circumstances in which Britain would be faced with an external nuclear threat that would not apply to the French national interest at the same time.
“It is quite possible for the French and British to work together on research and development of replacement submarines, so nearly halving the development costs. Over a 25 to 30-year cycle … the potential is to save many billions of pounds.”
Previously, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy had raised the idea of Anglo-French nuclear deterrent with the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown rejected the idea because of the fear of losing independence.
“The UK-US relationship, including the defence relationship has been built up over 60 years, and our defence relationship with the French would take many years to develop, but both countries in terms of military industrial base need to co-operate much more,” Harvey said.
Ed Miliband, Labours leader, has not welcomed the idea of replacing Trident. The idea would not be welcomed by the Labour front bench. However, Anglo-French bomb might be attractive to them.
In November 2010, Sarkozy and Cameron signed a defence agreement to share defence facilities and assure the safety of their nuclear deterrents.
They also signed for a new hydrodynamics facility at Valduc in France and new technology development Centre at Aldermaston in the UK.
—Agencies