U.K. Election Result Boosts Royal Navy Ballistic Missile Submarine Program

Right up to the moment the polling stations closed at 10 p.m. last Thursday in the U.K., the political pundits were unwavering in their forecasts: neither Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives nor the opposition Labour Party wielded enough firepower for an outright win in Britain’s 2015 parliamentary elections.

Had Labour emerged with the most seats in the House of Commons, its hopes of forming a viable government would have required the support of the fiercely anti-nuclear Scottish National Party.

This was a worrisome prospect for advocates of strategic nuclear deterrence, who feared that a weak Labour leadership would inevitably cave in to SNP demands and scrap plans to renew the U.K.’s submarine-based Trident ballistic missile force.

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