READERS will know that I refused to vote with my former Labour colleagues last week in favour of a general election that could make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister because I think he would be a disaster for Barrow and Furness.

A fair number of people have contacted me asking why I think he is such a threat to jobs in Barrow shipyard.

Many of my former colleagues in the Labour party point out that Labour’s official policy remains to continue the Dreadnought programme. Indeed, I spent hundreds of hours over my time as a Labour member working to keep that policy sensible. Jeremy Corbyn is just one man, they say, and our party is decided democratically.

Well, we will see about that.

But the main problem is this: whatever it says on the sheet of paper that emerges from the latest Labour conference or national executive committee meeting, the British prime minister has unparalleled personal control over the deployment of the nation’s deterrent. Putting Trident in the hands of this lifelong CND campaigner would ultimately spell the end the programme to replace the submarines that carry it. Why? Because Mr Corbyn has vowed never even to threaten a counter strike to protect the country against nuclear blackmail from hostile states. That breaks the policy of deliberate ambiguity which every British PM has maintained since Clement Attlee created the UK’s nuclear capability, and it renders the deterrent useless at a stroke.

The Dreadnought boats are designed solely to keep Trident undetectable under the oceans – they would have no purpose under a Corbyn government, unless you wanted to turn them into the world’s most expensive and least efficient troop carriers.

For my entire adult life I have campaigned against the damage done by Conservative governments and seen first hand the way a good Labour government can transform people’s chances. I desperately want to give voters a chance to choose a better path for our community and area without letting into Downing Street a man that would wreak disaster on our area and make our country less safe. But until we get that choice, my responsibility is to protect the livelihoods of the people who gave me the privilege of serving as their member of parliament.

No amount of name calling will deter me from that.