Sheep magazine archive 1: issues 3-9

22
Among other things they pointed out: “The force
cannot be seen as independent of the United
States in any meaningful sense. It relies on
the United States for the provision and regular
servicing of the D5 missiles. While this country
has, in theory, freedom of action over giving
the order to fire, it is unthinkable that, because
of the catastrophic consequences for guilty and
innocent alike, these weapons would ever be
launched, or seriously threatened, without the
backing and support of the United States.” This
shows how utterly pointless the “finger on the
button” question is.
And the generals went on: “Nuclear weapons
have shown themselves to be completely
useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale
of violence we currently, or are likely, to face,
particularly international terrorism; and the
more you analyse them the more unusable
they appear … Our independent deterrent has
become virtually irrelevant except in the context
of domestic politics.”
The uselessness of Trident has been long
understood. So clinging to it as a Labour party
commitment is all about presentation and
nothing to do with serious defence policy. Yet
renewing Trident will cost £100billion.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has
admonished us all that we have to live within
our means. So why spend billions on a cold war
weapons system that is effectively useless?
There are more general questions, too, raised
by the response to Corbyn setting out his
views on Trident. The first is: have colleagues
really learned the lessons from the leadership
campaign? One of those lessons is, surely, that
people are tired of obfuscation and spin. They
want politicians who believe in something and
who set out those beliefs honestly.
But there is also an issue about what constitutes
leadership. Critics of Corbyn on Trident seem to
think that leadership consists of a willingness to
press a button and incinerate millions of people,
or even to send thousands of British troops
to risk their lives in wars of dubious legality. I
suspect the public is weary of this kind of socalled
leadership. Instead, Corbyn is trying
to offer leadership on issues such as putting
human rights at the top of our foreign policy
agenda, even if it involves challenging allies like
Saudi Arabia.
In the world we face in 2015, that kind of
leadership is both more relevant and much
harder.
Trident = suicide
Artwork: KW Kaluta
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 4