Political

Trident voting figures: now and then

Here are the voting figures for the four big set piece debates over nuclear weapons policy at Liberal Democrat conferences in recent years.

In each case the winning side was the multilateralist one, the losing side a unilateralist one.

2017 York spring conference: 428-244 (64%-36%, 672 votes)
2015 Bournemouth autumn conference: 579-447 (56%-44%, 1,026 votes)
2013 Glasgow autumn conference: 322-228 (59%-41%, 550 votes)
2007 Harrogate spring conference: 454-414 (52%-48%, 868 votes)

Update: there was also a vote on multilateralism versus unilateralism at the 2022 spring conference in York. However, no count was taken as the show of hands was so strongly in favour of the former. 

4 responses to “Trident voting figures: now and then”

  1. So in ten years, during which membership has increased and “OMOV” has been introduced on the prospectus that it would enable more people to vote, the number voting on this key issue has gone down by over 20%?

    • What can’t be quantified easily is how big a vote it was expected to be and hence how keen people were to be in the hall. My memory is that 2007 was expected to be a big showdown but this year it was much lower key.

  2. The figures are facts and undeniable but what is wrong is the reduction of the debate to multilateralism vs unilateralism. We don’t discuss conventional defence in these terms and yet I could say that successive governments, including the coalition, have unilaterallly weakened the UK’s army, navy and air force without any negotiation with other countries and certainly without any corresponding decrease in their forces. The debate should be about what is the best use of the country’s limited resources for defence. Labelling as unilateralists those of us who think Trident and its successor are a waste of money certainly works as a slogan but kills serious discussion of the issue.

  3. I am entirely with David Grace on this. Perhaps I didn’t go to the debate(and therefore count in the multi-v-uni vote) because I just want an end to nuclear.. Whichever way people want to do it, I don’t care, lets just make a start.!

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