Corbyn preserves ambivalent stance on N-weapons, NATO

Bloomberg

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn held back from declaring support for Britain’s nuclear weapons program and for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as his security credentials came under examination in a BBC television interview, two weeks before the general election.
Corbyn was asked repeatedly whether he supported the renewal of Britain’s nuclear weapons system, known as Trident, and nine times he avoided giving a yes or no answer. He voted against upgrading Trident when his party took a ballot on the issue, with the majority overruling him.
“We’re going ahead with the program which has been agreed by Parliament and voted on by the Labour Party,” Corbyn said. “My views on nuclear weapons are well-known. I want to achieve a nuclear-free world through multilateral disarmament through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Corbyn’s views matter because if he wins the June 8 general election, he would have responsibility for deciding whether Britain would use its nuclear weapons. A YouGov poll Friday showed the lead held by rival Conservative Party has slipped to 5 percentage points, the narrowest since Theresa May became prime minister last July, and down from as high as 24 points earlier in the month.
But on national security, Corbyn still fares far worse with the electorate than May. A longtime opponent of nuclear weapons, Corbyn said on becoming Labour leader in 2015 that he’d never deploy them, raising questions about the point in even having a deterrent.