On the eve of the Commons debate on the future of Britain’s Trident weapons system, I counted at least three conspiracy theories doing the rounds at Westminster about why the government was rushing into renewal of our independent nuclear deterrent. Each was exquisitely detailed; each had a certain degree of credibility. The first can be labelled the Blair Legacy Theory. This posits that the Prime Minister was always determined to sign up to Trident renewal before he left office, as a way of yoking Britain for ever to the fate of the United States – no debate, no consultation. This theory is given weight by an exchange of letters between Tony Blair and George W Bush dated 7 December 2006 in which Blair stated: “We have therefore to set in train the steps necessary to maintain our current submarine-based nuclear deterrent system, replacing those elements – in particular the submarines – that will reach the end of their planned life by the 2020s.”
The second could be described as the British Aerospace Procurement Theory. This notes that the main beneficiary of any contract to replace the Trident fleet of submarines would be BAE Systems, currently the focus of corruption investigations in six countries across the globe. Is it any surprise, ask the proponents of this theory, that the decision by the Attorney General to drop the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE’s dealings with Saudi Arabia came just days after Blair had informed Bush of his intention to renew Britain’s nuclear deterrent? Both were designed to guarantee the commercial future of the UK arms manufacturer.
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