It is an act of faithlessness to claim weapons of mass destruction provide protection, says Catholic peace movement as MPs vote overwhelmingly in favour of renewing the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system by 472 to 117 on Monday.
The vote, won with a majority of 355 votes, approves the manufacture of four replacement submarines at an estimated cost of £31bn.
Theresa May told MPs it would be an act of “gross irresponsibility” for the UK to abandon nuclear weapons, during her Commons debut as Prime Minister.
“We cannot abandon our ultimate safeguard out of misplaced idealism,” said Mrs May during the five-hour debate. “That would be a reckless gamble: a gamble that would enfeeble our allies and embolden our enemies. A gamble with the safety and security of families in Britain that we must never be prepared to take.”
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales said in a statement ahead of the vote that they prayed that the decision taken by parliament would include the intention to “complete the elimination” of nuclear weapons.
The statement also said that nuclear weapons could never be morally justified as their use would “cause the mass deaths of innocent civilians and does not fit with the Just War tradition”.
“People of faith say it is never permissible to use nuclear weapons or to threaten to commit mass murder with nuclear weapons. The very existence of nuclear weapons is an affront to and a theft from the poor and vulnerable of our world,” said Pat Gaffney, general secretary of Catholic peace movement Pax Christi at a gathering attended by faith groups, students and scientists outside of parliament on Monday evening.
Meanwhile, 140 Labour MPs shunned Jeremy Corbyn and supported the government motion to renew the nuclear submarines despite the Labour leader restating his long-held opposition to nuclear deterrents. "I would not take a decision that kills millions of innocent people,” he told a packed House of Commons during the debate yesterday. I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about international relations.”
Just 47 Labour MPs voted against the government and with their leader.
David Mundell, the only Tory MP in Scotland was the only Scottish MP to vote for Trident; the rest of the 59 MPs voted against renewal.
The Scottish National Party, whose 54 MPs all voted against the government, had called for the vote to be postponed, arguing that the issue had again highlighted the growing division in public opinion between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
But a recent poll suggested that there is also a disconnect between the electorate in Scotland and its representatives in Westminster as a YouGov poll before the vote placed the yes and no camps very close together.
Last week, the Scottish Bishops spoke out strongly against the renewal of Trident, condemning the “immorality of strategic nuclear weapons due to the indiscriminate destruction of innocent human life”.
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