Danczuk opposition to 'Trident Replacement'

Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, having previously maintained that he was "undecided" on the issue of the Labour government's plans to upgrade the Trident nuclear missile system has, with the General Election just weeks away, finally made his mind up.

Mr Danczuk has written to Pat Sanchez of Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group saying that he "would oppose the Government replacing Trident" and "that money spent on Trident could be better spent on social and health care".

The Liberal Democrat PPC for Heywood and Middleton, Wera Hobhouse, has also commited herself to "follow official Lib Dem policy on the matter", which is not to replace Trident.

MP for Rochdale, Paul Rowen and MP for Heywood and Middleton, Jim Dobbin, have both demonstrated their opposition by voting against the government's plans to upgrade the Trident nuclear missile system when the matter was debated in Parliament on 14 March 2007.

Philip Gilligan, on behalf of the Peace Group said: “We are very pleased to see that our ongoing campaign for nuclear disarmament is achieving positive results, and are particularly delighted that that there now appears to be cross-party support throughout the whole of Rochdale Borough.

"We hope that this will help persuade other local MPs, like Phil Woolas and Janet Anderson to follow public opinion and to, also, change their positions. We hope that it heralds the day when all our local MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates will join us in calling for the immediate decommissioning of the current Trident system. The existing system already costs the country £2,000,000,000 per year. This is money that needs to be spent on essential services, like social care, not on nuclear weapons.”