Nick Ferrari grills Emily Thornberry on whether Labour would use nuclear deterrent

11 November 2019, 09:06 | Updated: 11 November 2019, 09:56

Emily Thornberry has refused to say whether Labour would use the nuclear deterrent that they are committed to renewing.

The government has passed a bill for the renewal of Trident and the Shadow Foreign Secretary confirmed that Labour would continue with that plan.

But asked whether Jeremy Corbyn would ever use it, Ms Thornberry was rather less clear.

Nick started by quoting an earlier interview, in which Ms Thornberry had been unable to name the last military action that Mr Corbyn had backed and asked if she had found the answer yet.

After she named East Timor, Nick pressed her on whether he would ever use the nuclear deterrent, but the Shadow Foreign Secretary claimed the best option is to not answer one way or the other.

She said: "I think it's better that we leave it ambiguous. That is the way Prime Ministers have always been in the past."

Nick forced her to admit that Labour would continue with Trident, but she wouldn't say if she would use it.

He told her: "That is my point. You're prepared to pay for it, but you'd never deploy it."

Ms Thornberry responded: "That has always been the position of every respectable government in the past."

When Nick described that as extraordinary, she insisted: "What I find extraordinary is that you think we should be committed to using it or not in a way which, until the recent clutch of Tory Prime Ministers, they have always said we have a deterrent and we're not prepared to say in which circumstances we would use it.

"And that is the end of it. Frankly I think that's the proper answer now."

Watch the forensic interview at the top of the page.