Corbyn's nuclear subs without weapons idea dismissed as 'like using imitation rifles'

Carl Dinnen takes a look around HMS Vigilant

There's a red pistol grip with a cable running from it that sits in a tiny wall safe within the Missile Control Centre of HMS Vigilant. The pistol grip has a trigger, and if that trigger is ever pulled in earnest then Britain will have launched its nuclear weapons.

"Trident is ultimately a political system," says the Weapons Officer whose job it is to pull that trigger, "if we are launching it, then deterrence has failed."

So why spend billions on a system which has failed if we ever have to use it? Of course the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is amongst those who would like to ditch Britain's nuclear weapons. But at the weekend he suggested the submarines could be kept without the missiles.

Visiting HMS Vigilant today, the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon says, "the nuclear deterrent is Britain's insurance policy in a dangerous and increasingly uncertain world." He also dismisses the Corbyn suggestion as "like using imitation rifles".

Rear Admiral John Weale, Head of the UK Submarine Service, has to stay neutral on political issues, so I ask him what military capability one of the Vanguard subs would have without its missiles. He says all it would have left is its self-defence torpedoes.

"If the missile compartment stays there with nothing in it, it's a very big 16,000 tonne submarine with limited capacity to carry 'Swordfish' torpedoes, and not a lot else."

Labour's real problem though is with the jobs which are dependent on the next generation of nuclear armed submarines. They are due to come into service in 2030.

The people who will build them, and whose union can influence Labour policy, don't think much of the nuclear subs without nuclear weapons idea.

Azza Samms is the UNITE Convener at BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness. "It's an absolutely ridiculous idea that you can build nuclear submarines - that are built specifically for nuclear deterrence - to say you can build them but not put the weapons on. It's absolutely ludicrous, it's pie in the sky thinking."

But for the time being that is not likely, and the Vanguard subs will continue to patrol the seas around the clock. The Weapons Officer whose hand ultimately holds the trigger on Britain's nuclear bombs, says of that responsibility,"It's an honour. And a burden."