Rebecca Long-Bailey: Labour leadership candidate says she’s ‘prepared to use’ nuclear deterrent to protect UK – unlike Jeremy Corbyn Ms Long-Bailey is considered by many to be the ‘continuity candidate’ in the race to succeed Mr Corbyn

Labour leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey has said she would be prepared to use the UK’s nuclear deterrent if she were Prime Minister, marking a distinct shift from the position of Jeremy Corbyn over the issue, which plagued his leadership.

Ms Long-Bailey is considered by many to be the “continuity candidate” in the race to succeed Mr Corbyn, who is stepping down after the party’s election catastrophe in the December election, when it lost scores of seats in traditional Labour areas.

But despite her appeals to Mr Corbyn’s considerable base within the party, Ms Long-Bailey said on Tuesday that she would be prepared to use the UK’s Trident missiles, something the current Labour leader wavered on throughout his tenure as leader.

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‘You have to be prepared to use it’

Asked whether her plans for “progressive patriotism” meant she would be be prepared to launch a nuclear strike as Prime Minister, Rebecca Long-Bailey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you have a deterrent you have to be prepared to use it.

“But I’m not going to be a warmonger foaming at the mouth and saying that I’m going to press a button, because any leader needs to ensure that they assess the situation, they address the consequences of their actions and, of course, any country that was considering pushing the nuclear button needed to realise that we were facing nuclear annihilation right across the whole world.

“But, yes, a leader would need to be prepared to engage in that if they were going to use the nuclear deterrent going forward.”

Corbyn and Trident

Mr Corbyn has long opposed nuclear weapons and said in 2015 when he was running for the leadership that he was opposed to the use and holding of nuclear weapons, adding: “I want to see a nuclear-free world.”

The veretan left-winger suggested that he would not be prepared to use Trident and told the BBC in 2017 that: “I have made clear there would be no first use of it and that any use of nuclear weapons would be a disaster for the world.”

But after pressure from many in his party and trade unions Labour adopted the policy of renewing the UK’s Trident fleet of nuclear submarines.

During the election campaign he suggested that the UK could give up its nuclear weapons as part of a multilateral disarmament agreement.

‘We weren’t trusted as a party’

Despite the different stance on Trident, Ms Long-Bailey said: “I supported Jeremy. I still support Jeremy because I felt that he was the right man with the right moral integrity to lead the party.”

But when asked about Labour’s general election defeat, she said: “We weren’t trusted on Brexit. We weren’t trusted as a party to tackle the crisis of anti-Semitism.

“We weren’t trusted on our policies, no matter how radical or detailed they were. They simply didn’t hit the ground running.”

She will face off against Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry in the leadership race that is due to culminate in early April.