He has been campaigning all his life for nuclear disarmament. And - I think he has caught the mood of many people in this country with his views there. The SNP have as their policy to do unilateral disarmament, giving up Trident as soon as possible after independence. That didn’t hurt them in the last election, as they gained all except three of the seats in Scotland. His view is shared by top people in the military. This is from a letter by retired generals in 2008, when Trident was projected to cost $20 billion (it’s now projected to cost well over $250 billion for the lifetime cost, though the government refuses to answer any questions about the total cost)

See Generals in 'scrap Trident' call

"Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of the violence we currently face, or are likely to face - particularly international terrorism."

"Our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant except in the context of domestic politics.

"Rather than perpetuating Trident, the case is much stronger for funding our armed forces with what they need to meet the commitments actually laid upon them. In the present economic climate it may well prove impossible to afford both."

Meanwhile Theresa May has said she will actually consider first use of nuclear weapons. I.e. to use them against an aggressor who has not fired nuclear weapons at us. Her defense secretary put it like this:

“In the most extreme circumstances we have made it clear that you can’t rule out use of nuclear weapons as a first strike.”

No UK prime minister has ever said that before as far as I know. They generally just refuse to be drawn on it.

Jeremy Corbyn’s views don’t seem to have been a vote loser. This is the latest graph from the BBC.

The dots are all over the place, but the red dots for Labour have continued a steep upwards trend as he continues to put his views on nuclear weapons forward forcefully (along with his other policies of course).

UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT

We all know that of course he voted to scrap Trident. However by principles of democracy, he is going with the will of his party which is to keep it.

So anyway I’d like to say a bit first about the case for unilateral disarmament. I understand that the likes of the US feel the need to engage in multi-lateral disarmament, that their weapons are a powerful bargaining chip that they can use to get other countries to disarm. But with the UK - it's something we can do unilaterally, to show to the world that there's no benefit in having weapons that can kill millions of people in one go.

It would be an especially powerful statement because we are such a long standing nuclear power. I don’t think many know this, but the UK as well as being early pioneers in the unmanned space program (our Black Arrow rocket launched a satellite Prospero into space from Australia in 1971), were also only the third nation to test a nuclear weapon, in 1952, after the US and Russia, seven years after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, and that was an independently developed weapon. We did our nuclear tests in Australia.

Our nuclear subs are our own technology, built in Barrow-in-Furness in the Lake District. The missiles that deliver the nuclear weapons are built by Lockheed Martin in the US, and, the UK contributed 5% of the development costs. The nuclear warheads themselves are again made in the UK, and assembled in Aldermaston by the Atomics Weapons Establishment which makes new warheads every year (warheads deteriorate and need to be replaced). This is done under an agreement with the US dating back to 1958 that the UK is allowed to draw inspiration from the US nuclear warhead designs but we can construct and maintain our own warheads.

So it would be a rather striking statement if we gave up our nuclear weapons - and Jeremy Corbyn would do that as part of a multi-lateral disarmament process.

He really wants to do it unilaterally and the main reason I'd hesitate voting Labour is that some of the Labour MPs seem to have bought into this idea that possessing nuclear weapons somehow makes us safer.

I don't think it does make us safer at all, just makes us a target. And the only sane response if someone dropped nuclear weapons on another country is to not respond with nuclear weapons. How could anyone consider killing millions of people with nuclear weapons as a way to respond? It's like carpet bombing a whole city in one go.

In a situation like that, for instance if North Korea were to drop a nuclear weapon on another country, there would be universal condemnation of the country that dropped the bomb, and I don't think their government would last long after such an event if there was no nuclear weapons retaliation. They would have no support at all. China certainly wouldn’t support North Korea if it launched a nuclear weapon.

If we had a Green candidate I'd vote for them as they have a policy of unilateral disarmament - I think the UK could show a lead by giving up its nuclear weapons - joining the many other countries that could make nuclear weapons and have made a decision to not make them or to stop making them. It would be the first country I think to do so since South Africa.

SNP would do that too, If they gain independence, then Scotland would not have Trident so Scotland would briefly be a nuclear power that unilaterally disarms, again making them first to do so for a fair while and sending a powerful signal to the world.

THE WHOLE POINT IS NOT TO USE THE WEAPONS - AND IF YOU CAN GET RID OF THEM IN A PROCESS OF MULTILATERAL DISARMAMENT, SO MUCH THE BETTER

So,Jeremy Corbyn is not pushing for unilateral disarmament, given the mood of his party. But he his at least going to be pushing for multilateral disarmament strongly.

The idea used to criticize him in the TV debates - that he wants to give up a multibillion dollar submarine fleet - somehow they see that as a reason to vote against him, as if the cost of the program was a reason why it has to go head. Do they think that the Trident submarines should actually be used, because they cost so much?

Surely their only role is to prevent nuclear war, and the program is only successful if they are never used? So if they can be a bargaining chip towards multilateral nuclear disarmament, then they have played their role far better than if we were to keep them.

And if we don't complete them, then we save billions of dollars, the latest estimate I know of is £205 billion for the lifetime cost including decommissioning. That’s $265 billion.

If Jeremy Corbyn gets an increased share of the vote compared to the last election, which is seeming at least possible, then that will show strong support for his policies not just amongst Labour party members who elected him but in the country as a whole. So that would give him a stronger position in his own party too, and probably deal with the divisions in his party to a fair degree as well. So then they will see that his policies on nuclear disarmament aren't a vote loser but actually a vote gainer.

I thought the lady at the end in this video hit the nail on its head with her

"I don't understand why everyone in this room seems so keen on killing millions of people?"

I think she speaks for many of us