Fact check: Liberal Democrats’ 2024 manifesto supported renewal of Trident
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch questioned Lib Dem commitments to the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
In a podcast interview Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch suggested that typical Liberal Democrat MPs “have bad views on national security” and “don’t want us to keep, maybe, a nuclear deterrent”.
From around 59 minutes and 50 seconds in the podcast, Ms Badenoch said: “A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof and – you know – people in the community like them: ‘Oh, he fixed the church roof, you should be a Member of Parliament.’
“And they want to be nice. And then they get there, but actually they’ve got lots of very silly and foolish ideas along with being able to fundraise for a local community.
“And then they have bad views on national security, for example. They don’t want us to keep, maybe, a nuclear deterrent.”
Evaluation
While Liberal Democrats have voted against the like-for-like renewal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, the party’s current policy is in favour of keeping the same level of deterrent.
The facts
Liberal Democrat MPs and candidates in last year’s general election ran on the party’s manifesto. That manifesto said it would support “maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent with four submarines providing continuous at-sea deterrence, while pursuing multilateral global disarmament”.
Four is the same number of submarines that currently form part of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. The deterrent consists of Trident missiles armed with nuclear warheads, which are fitted to Vanguard submarines. There is always at least one submarine at sea.
In comparison to the Liberal Democrats’ promise, the Conservative Party said in its manifesto: “We will always be steadfast in our support for our Trident nuclear deterrent.”
Are there Lib Dems who want to scrap Trident?
Although the Liberal Democrat manifesto in 2024 supported Trident, the issue has often been a matter of internal debate for the party.
In the 2015 general election the party stood on a manifesto promise that there should be fewer than four submarines when a replacement for Vanguard was sought, and that the UK should no longer have a continuous at-sea deterrence, instead replacing it with “a contingency posture of regular patrols”.
When there was a vote on renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent the following year, seven Liberal Democrat MPs voted against, one did not vote and no Lib Dem MPs voted for the renewal.
