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Nearly half of Britain backs Jeremy Corbyn on scrapping Trident nuclear weapons - despite what his MPs think.

A shock poll out today shows 49% of people want to ditch the 'Cold War' weapons programme while 51% want to renew it.

Remarkably 29% back Mr Corbyn's idea of building new Trident subs without nuclear warheads on board - a theory attacked by David Cameron as "absurd" .

The figures come despite analysis by The Telegraph showing just seven shadow cabinet members, including Mr Corbyn, want to scrap nuclear weapons.

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Shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry is among the small number of anti-Trident MPs in Mr Corbyn's top team, outnumbered by 20 who want to renew it.

Half of Brits want to scrap Trident nuclear weapons ORB poll for the Independent

Deputy leader Tom Watson, ousted defence chief Maria Eagle and shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn have all said they want the £100bn programme to go ahead.

And yesterday Labour MP Frank Field warned the party was "walking in the opposite direction" to the public on key issues like security and defence.

Today's results came from an survey of 2,015 people for the Independent by polling firm ORB International.

The online poll on January 20-21 found 51% backed renewing Trident in full and 29% would support building new Vanguard submarines without nuclear warheads.

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A further 20% would want to scrap the nuclear weapons system entirely.

More Labour voters were quizzed in the survey, with 30% backing the party last May compared to 29% for the Tories.

Tory voters were far more likely to support renewing Trident, with 77% fully in favour compared to 38% of Labour voters.

Just 6% of Tories supported scrapping the nuclear deterrent entirely, compared to 24% of Labour voters and 60% of SNP members in favour.

(Image: PA)

Men are also far bigger supporters of Trident than women.

Some 59% of men backed renewing the nuclear weapons compared to 43% of women.

And 37% of women agreed with Jeremy Corbyn 's idea of non-nuclear Trident submarines, compared to 21% of men.