Labour is facing a nuclear dawn

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Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a CND rally earlier this year (Getty)

Days after his re-election as leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn – a lifelong campaigner against nuclear weapons – has agreed not to challenge Labour’s existing support for renewing Trident nuclear weapons on the grounds of maintaining party “unity”. This is a serious mistake and shows the limits of the Labour Party as a vehicle of radical change even under an avowed socialist leadership. Pundits assure us that the Labour Party is a “broad church” and needs to remain so to win office. The Trident decision shows what that broad church means in practice. The Labour Party contains a majority who oppose the ruinously expensive weapons of mass destruction that is Trident, and a minority that supports it.

Jeremy Corbyn was given an overwhelming mandate by Labour’s membership because of the principles he holds and represents. It is wonderful that the leader of the Labour Party is anti-austerity, anti-racist, anti-imperialist and a self-declared socialist. His supporters expect him to build policies on these principles and provide a left-wing break to the failed neo-liberal agenda which has dominated politics for more than 40 years. If Corbyn continues to placate the right with “compromises” like that over Trident, it won’t matter who leads the Labour Party. It will business as usual for reactionary politics.

Sasha Simic

London

Had the UK voted to remain in the EU, it is probable that we could have negotiated an adequate nuclear deterrent without renewing Trident and our dependence upon the US. The French have developed four Triomphant Nuclear Submarines – one of which is on duty at any one time armed with an arsenal of new nuclear missiles. The French also have an air-launched missile deterrent using their high-altitude long-range Mirage fighter bombers. The UK could have suggested sharing command, ownership and cost these deterrents with the French.

The UK could have taken on the cost and responsibility for two of the Triomphant Submarines when our Vanguard Submarines become redundant (or are refitted and mothballed). The UK could also have taken over half of the air launched missiles using the new Eurofighter within the same agreement. This would have been good cooperative economics and provided Europe with a totally independent deterrent and reduced our dependence upon the US.

Renewing Trident will cost more than £205bn and, remarkably, it could be that the UK will not own the nuclear trigger – that could be in the hands of the commander-in-chief of the US, which could be Donald Trump.

The cost of this joint cooperation with France would have been little more than the current costs of our limited Vanguard/Trident deterrent and it would also have provided the added air launch option.

Just another one of the opportunities that Brexit vote has cost the UK.

Martin Deighton

Address supplied

Labour’s next leader

The Labour Party that is electable and capable of commanding a Blair-style majority will be a reborn New Labour Party that accepts selective education, promotes a free-market economy, keeps the unions at arm's length and concedes that elements of private healthcare provision are here to stay in the NHS.

The next Labour Prime Minister will probably be a male, gay and black or Asian social democrat. To underline how far Labour is currently from power, that leader is probably today barely 30 and not even yet an MP.

This vision will only be possible once Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott are in the Karl Marx Residential Home. Red Labour already died twice at the last two general elections. The Gang of Three are merely finishing off the job by putting the final nail in the coffin and giving it a secular burial.

At least they can be fiscally tight on one decision. They can turn the "Ed Stone" over and inscribe it with the following epitaph: RIP Socialism, Died at Liverpool, 26 September 2016.

Anthony Rodriguez

Middlesex

Jeremy Corbyn is here to stay

Will Gore (The media isn’t Jeremy Corbyn’s problem – his personality is, 27 September) tells us that all that is wrong with Corbyn is his personality. Would that be his sincerity? His kindness? His forbearance in the face of the nastiest smear campaign I can ever recall seeing? His adherence to principle? Or does Will Gore have some inside information unknown to the rest of us?

Let’s now wait and see if Labour under Corbyn can confound the critics and win over the electorate. It would be nice to see him given fair treatment by the media, but of course that won’t happen, so we must see if he can do it without.

I am not a member of the Labour Party and have no preconceived ideas about their internal workings. I just like what I see of Jeremy Corbyn.

Penny Little

Oxfordshire

Cycling

Sixty years of cycling has taught me that the best approach to left and other turns is to use a filter lane where I can and use the cycle box from the centre, not the side.

If there is no filter lane, claim the whole lane by approaching lights riding in the centre, so that traffic has to wait behind. Bright clothing, good lights and clear signals are also necessary.

My pet hate is buses sitting two feet from your back wheel because they have low windscreens, if this happens I gradually slow down until the penny drops.

Doug Flack

Derby