Margaret Thatcher defied her Cabinet to order Trident

TWO-thirds of Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet opposed her decision to bring the Trident nuclear deterrent to Scotland from the United States, official papers released today show.

In 1980 defence secretary John Nott told the prime minister that the majority of Conservatives opposed her decision to replace the ageing Polaris system and that military chiefs were not convinced, either.

The files, released by the National Archives, also reveal Mrs Thatcher’s attempts to end hunger strikes in Northern Ireland through negotiation with the IRA, and that ministers even considered withdrawal from the country.

The decision to buy Trident was one of the most divisive in Mrs Thatcher’s early premiership and led to mass protests, but also helped the Conservatives hold on to power as they profited politically from Labour’s policy of unilateral disarmament.

In addition, Trident guaranteed around 9,000 jobs north of the Border, with the submarines based at Faslane on the Clyde.

Mrs Thatcher struck a deal with US President Jimmy Carter in 1980 for Britain to buy the Trident submarine-launched missile system to replace the UK’s Polaris deterrent.

The following year, however, she was unexpectedly forced to reopen the agreement after Mr Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, opted for the more expensive Trident II variant – leaving Britain to either follow suit or be left with an outdated system.

The files show Mr Nott warned Mrs Thatcher that they would have to “deal with all the issues” surrounding the acquisition, in the teeth of strong opposition from within the Tory ranks. “It was essential to do so since two-thirds of the party and two-thirds of the Cabinet were opposed to the procurement of Trident,” Mr Nott told her.

“Even the chiefs of staff were not unanimous.”

Although Mr Nott warned that the cost of the programme looked set to double – from £5 billion to £10bn – the decision to press ahead received strong backing from the foreign secretary, Lord Carrington.

If Britain did not get Trident, France would be left as the only nuclear power in Europe. “This would be intolerable,” he said.

However, Mr Nott’s concerns were echoed by trade secretary John Biffen who said the decision to go ahead with Trident could be seen as cutting the resources available for conventional forces at time when the military was already over-stretched.

“In such circumstances anti-nuclear sentiment will go much wider than in the 1950s and, in the circumstances, could be electorally harmful,” he said.

Such views may have accounted for Mrs Thatcher’s decision to avoid a full Cabinet discussion before the original decision to acquire Trident was announced by Mr Nott’s predecessor, Francis Pym, in July 1980.

A note from the Cabinet secretary Sir Robin Armstrong explained a Cabinet discussion had been planned until a last-minute warning from the White House that a US newspaper was about to break the story, including details of Mrs Thatcher’s correspondence with Mr Carter.

“After consulting a few colleagues (who took the view that bringing forward the announcement by 48 hours would be the best way out of a difficult situation) you agreed that the timetable should be advanced by 48 hours,” he wrote.

Sir Robin acknowledged nothing had actually appeared in the newspaper, but insisted the reporter concerned was “very angry at having been forestalled” by the decision to bring forward the announcement.

Mr Nott’s claims over Conservative support 30 years ago for Trident were dismissed by another former defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Sir Malcolm said: “I was not in the Cabinet and party to those discussions but I can say that it is not true that two-thirds of the Cabinet and the party were opposed to Trident then. In my view, I think that John Nott was perhaps one of those optimistic defence secretaries who thought that if Britain did not purchase Trident he could use the money on other things.

“This, of course, is not true because the Treasury would have said ‘we have other demands on us from other departments’.

“It is probably true that, as was her way, Margaret Thatcher was pushing a decision faster than some would have liked.”

The coalition government is currently split over the future of Britain’s deterrent with the Liberal Democrats opposing a submarine-based renewal.

Sir Malcolm, who was defence secretary between 1992 and 1995 in John Major’s government and now chairs the Intelligence and security committee, likened the decision in 1980 to the one facing the UK now in renewing Trident.

Sir Malcolm, who supports renewing Trident, said: “Of course with the Cold War it was an even clearer case in 1980 than it is now. However, the decisions are similar and in reality the only answer was then as it is now to have a version of Trident.

“The point of it is not to make war but to have it as a deterrent. This means we need a submarine -based deterrent because our enemies do not know where it is. A deterrent is not a deterrent if our enemies think they can destroy it with a pre-emptive strike.”

The SNP have said Trident would no longer be welcome in an independent Scotland and the Scottish Government has looked at economic alternatives to make up for the loss of the submarine fleet.