Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Nicola Sturgeon ridicules Labour’s ‘tortured’ Trident debate

Given last year’s election was so much about the possibility of the SNP and Labour working together in government, Labour figures will be smiling ruefully at Nicola Sturgeon’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show today, in which she stuck the boot into the party she once suggested a ‘progressive alliance’ with. The Scottish First Minister is of course thinking more about fighting Labour in this year’s Holyrood elections than about the Westminster Parliament, and so she wanted to paint her main challengers as weak and confusing. She told the programme that the party would end up ‘without a shred of credibility’ if it held a free vote on Trident renewal, and ridiculed Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion of building new submarines that didn’t carry nuclear warheads:

‘I think it’s ridiculous and I think it’s a sign of just how tortured these debates are becoming within the Labour party.’

The Observer reports today that Corbyn’s allies are briefing that Labour will lose all its remaining Scottish Parliament seats in May.

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