Corbyn’s team clash over Trident

Today Clive Lewis, the shadow Defence Secretary, used his conference speech to say that Labour has a clear policy in favour of renewing Trident and would sign up to the Nato target of spending 2pc on defence. While this is Labour policy, given that Lewis is viewed by many as a fully signed-up Corbynite there had been an expectation that he would take on an anti-Trident stance. Following his comments, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament issued a press release expressing their ‘huge disappointment at this U-turn’.

Now it’s transpired that Lewis had meant to go further. The talk of conference is that Lewis had planned to say he would not try to change party policy on Trident renewal. However, at the last minute, Corbyn’s director of comms Seumas Milne took this out without consulting Lewis. This meant that Lewis only learnt that he was supposed to say simply what the policy was, once on stage:

That thing when someone changes your speech just before you make it…