Jeremy Corbyn will work with SNP to remove Trident

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he is willing to work with the SNP to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland.

Speaking to BBC Scotland, Mr Corbyn reaffirmed his long-standing opposition to Trident and said he would vote with the SNP at Westminster on the issue.

Mr Corbyn said he would like to see jobs associated with nuclear defence in Scotland transferred to other forms of high-value engineering.

The new party leader will be travelling to Scotland next week.

Mr Corbyn won a decisive victory over his three rivals in the UK Labour leadership contest earlier this month, taking 59.5% of the votes cast.

In his victory speech he promised to campaign in Scotland for those "great Labour traditions".

'Own principles'

Making his first in-depth comments on Scottish issues since being elected, the Labour leader acknowledged that Trident was a controversial matter and said it would be debated at the party's conference in Brighton next week.

"My position on Trident has been very clear all of my life," he said.

"I think Trident should go. I do not believe that it is a form of defence. I do not believe it is something that anyone in their proper mind would ever want to use, so I ask the question is it really sensible to commit such a vast proportion of our assets - £100bn over 25 years - to this when we could be spending it on developing our industrial infrastructure?"

Asked if it was an issue he could work with the SNP on, Mr Corbyn said: "In the House of Commons I was chair of the CND group and one of the vice chairs is from the SNP and yes we will be voting with them on this, or they will be voting with us, whichever way you want to put it."

The SNP's deputy leader Stewart Hosie said he was "very pleased, but not surprised" by Mr Corbyn's stance on Trident.

"His big challenge comes in persuading his party conference that it is the right thing to do and of course his shadow cabinet, including his shadow defence secretary, who of course has previously voted for Trident renewal," Mr Hosie said.

"This a welcome sign that he is prepared to stick to his own principles, and if we can work with the Labour party, if they are prepared to vote with us to remove Trident, then that would be a great result for the people of the UK."

Rebuild support

In August, Chancellor George Osborne was accused of pre-empting parliament's decision on the replacement of Trident by announcing more than £500m of contracts for the Royal Navy's submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde.

Writing in the Sun newspaper then, Mr Osborne said the political consensus that Britain needed a nuclear deterrent "risks being shattered again by an unholy alliance of Labour's left-wing insurgents and the Scottish nationalists".

In the BBC interview, Mr Corbyn also said his priority was to rebuild Labour support in Scotland.

"I will be in Scotland next week campaigning on issues of jobs, issues of security, issues of welfare and issues that affect ordinary people in Scotland, particularly health inequalities," he said.

"For the moment what we are doing is building Labour support in Scotland and it is going very well. We have recruited a lot of members to the party in Scotland."