Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, has reiterated his opposition to the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system, but conceded that the position is politically compromising.

In an event hosted by King’s Review and chaired by Christopher Prendergast, Professor Emeritus in French, who at the start of the event made clear he was not acting as a “neutral moderator”, Zeichner conceded: “We’re putting ourselves in a vulnerable position politically”.

The Shadow Transport Minister approvingly noted of his statement before his election that his position on Trident renewal was “not quite what my party’s is”, concurring with Prendergast that “not quite” meant “exactly not”.

“There has to be nuance in your presentation, but you’re exactly right,” he said. “Going around saying your party is rubbish is not the best way to win an election.”

However, he said that this “perhaps isn’t true” for Labour voters in Cambridge who, he argued, were “fed up with politics as it was before”.

He said Cambridge’s status as “a progressive city, an intelligent city” meant its voters were more receptive to arguments in favour of scrapping Trident. Arguing that voters in other constituencies were more likely to be sceptical, he said it was “not surprising” that some of his Labour colleagues continued to support Trident renewal because they were “a bit scared” of the potential electoral consequences to do otherwise.

Prendergast claimed the electorate had been sold a “delusional belief” over the issue.

Zeichner accused the Prime Minister’s position on Trident to be “very far from the truth”, and called Cameron and his party’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions “regularly pathetic… when these are serious and profound issues”.

He also accused Cameron and the Conservatives of “trotting out… the kind of stuff you see in Sun headlines”.

Arguing that the 2015 election illustrated that the party “still can’t take on Murdoch and win elections”, he criticised the print media for being “pretty biased” and conceded that the argument to scrap Trident could be lost because of a “difficult” media environment.

“This is the beginning of a debate that frankly the popular media has not started at all”, a situation he called “ludicrous”.

He also admitted he “can’t remember” whether the previous Labour government had reduced the number of submarines from four to three.

Currently all four Vanguard submarines are in service, as the 2006 white paper proposing reduction was never adopted.

One questioner raised the possibility of reducing the number of submarines to two, so the deterrent was not permanently at sea. In response, Zeichner criticised those who were “obsessed” with military hardware and “having the stuff”.

“The distance between the real world and that is very great indeed,” he said.
However, he said the country could be under no illusions about the existence of regimes hostile to the UK.

“I am not a pacifist,” he said. “The Labour Party is not a pacifist party, and is not about to become one.”

Despite this, he reiterated his belief that his party could convince the public to scrap the nuclear deterrent.

“I do not think that to win an election we have to run the old arguments about Trident,” he said, narratives which he accused the media of repeating.

“A lot of this to me feels from a different age,” he said. “As far as the public and the media are concerned… we are digging up something from 30 years ago and replaying it.”

He also claimed that the public were “reviled” by the idea of Britain following an American agenda, and concurred with Prendergast when he said: “It is not obvious to me in what sense we can plausibly describe our system as independent.”

“By and large, we see America as our ally,” Zeichner said. But he claimed that we might wonder whether this would still be the case if Donald Trump got into power, which he said would be a “very frightening time”.

Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Defence Secretary, had been “derided and lampooned” in the press for the suggestion that “Trident isn’t the only option available,” Zeichner claimed, but that such media coverage illustrated the “shallowness” of the arguments presented for Trident renewal.

He praised Thornberry for being “very astute” to raise the issue of Trident as part of the country’s long-term defence policy.

Conceding that Jeremy Corbyn’s position “didn’t work for us in the 1980s” and that the current debate handed an opportunity, he supported the belief that this was the “first opportunity in a long while” Labour might offer a different stance on Trident renewal, and hoped that the public would support this.

Throughout the event, Zeichner reiterated his longstanding belief that the weapons’ effectiveness as a deterrent was dubious, citing his presence on marches against nuclear weapons in the early 1980s.

“I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now,” he told the mostly non-student audience. “I think I’ve been very clear I’m not voting for renewal.”

Prendergast, however, argued more forcefully against the weapons, claiming that the idea they are an effective deterrent against North Korea had “zero credibility as a military political decision”.

Zeichner echoed his sentiment, arguing that it was “completely irrational” to believe Trident affected how the North Korean regime operated, an argument that assumes the North Korean government was a “rational regime”.

In response to Prendergast’s contention that the logic of deterrence means that nuclear proliferation should be encouraged, Zeichner compared the situation to arguments made by the American right about gun ownership.

“It’s the same argument that Donald Trump and Sarah Palin make,” he said. ‘“If we all have guns, we’re safer’.”

He also compared Britain’s position as a former empire to Austria who, he argued, in the 1980s believed Britain’s attitudes towards its own influence were “quaint”.

“It all depends on where you’re sitting,” he said. “Britain’s position is an accident of history.”