This morning Theresa May appeared on the Andrew Marr show to talk Trump and Trident. While the Prime Minister successfully batted away suggestions that she wasn’t doing enough to challenge the US President on feminism — stating that the fact she will be there ‘as a female prime minister’ when the two meet is the biggest statement to be made about the role of women — she struggled on the latter topic.
Following a report by the Sunday Times that a serious malfunction in June of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons deterrent was covered up by Downing Street, Marr asked May if she had known about the Trident misfire when she told MPs it should be renewed. In July, May used her first big Commons speech to persuade parliament to spend £40 billion on new Trident submarines.
In response, the Prime Minister refused to answer Marr’s question four times — instead simply insisting she has ‘full faith’ in Britain’s Trident missiles while taking a swipe at Jeremy Corbyn over his anti-Trident stance:
AM: When you made that first speech in July in the House of Commons about our Trident nuclear defence, did you know that misfire had happened?
TM: Well, I have absolute faith in our Trident missiles. When I made that speech in the House of Commons, what we were talking about was whether or not we should renew our Trident missiles…
AM: Did you know that it had happened?
TM: I think we should defend our country. I think we should play our role within Nato and have an independent nuclear deterrent. Jeremy Corbyn thinks differently. Jeremy Corbyn thinks we shouldn’t defend out country.
AM: But this is a very serious incident. Did you know about it when you were talking in the House of Commons?
TM: And the issue that we were talking about in the House of Commons was a very serious issue… it was about whether or not we should renew Trident. Whether we should look to the future, that’s what the House of Commons voted on. I believe in defending our country, Jeremy Corbyn voted against it, he doesn’t want to defend our country with an independent nuclear deterrent…
AM: Prime Minister, did you know?
TM: …there are tests that take place all the time regularly for our nuclear deterrence. What we were talking about in that debate that took place…
It was not enough for a visibly uncomfortable May to avoid Marr’s questions by simply pointing out that Corbyn has questionable views on the issue. Her refusal to answer the question will place further pressure on Michael Fallon, who is expected to be summoned to the House tomorrow for an urgent question, to explain why MPs were not notified ahead of the vote. While Trident tends to be the issue of late that Labour MPs are keen to avoid (whether it’s on the doorstep or in the Commons), for now it looks set to become a thorn in the government’s side too.
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