Labour urged not to back downgrading of Trident

As Labour embarks on an intense debate on the future of Trident, a former aide to Gordon Brown has joined forces with a frontbencher to declare that the party would look "dangerously weak" if it diluted Britain's nuclear deterrent.

John Woodcock, who served as the former prime minister's spokesman, and Angela Smith, the shadow deputy leader of the Commons, issued their warning as senior figures in the party urge Ed Miliband to use a government review of Trident to support a smaller deterrent.

But in a Guardian article Woodcock and Smith warn: "While the world has changed greatly since the 1980s, the political reality has not: we will appear dangerously weak as a future party of government if we are prepared to give up that insurance while the world remains so unstable."

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