Michael Fallon: Trident secrecy essential
Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, has admitted that both he and Theresa May knew about the 2016 test of a Trident missile launch which the Sunday Times reports went wrong. Sir Michael said the sub and the crew passed the test perfectly well but he won’t comment on what happened with the missile. Some will draw their own conclusions from that but Sir Michael says people shouldn’t believe everything they’ve read in the Sunday Times.
As ever with a Michael Fallon statement, we are little the wiser at the end of the hour and he will wear that as a badge of pride.
Sir Michael Fallon insisted that it was usual practice to withhold operational details about the deterrent but that’s come in for some mockery as critics point to press releases crowing about the successful test launches of missiles in the past (see here and here for just two examples). There’s pooled TV footage from past exercises as well (though none from last June’s aborted exercise) and there are accounts of the gatherings that accompany these “DASO” (pronounced day-so) exercises – it stands for Demonstration and Shakedown Operation.
No account beats the one in Professor Peter Hennessy’s “The Silent Deep”, referred to by Labour MP John Spellar in the Commons. Prof Hennessy records attending the DASO exercises in May 2009 and another in October 2012. There are gatherings and celebratory dinners in hotels along Florida’s Cocoa Beach. The Russians turn up with two naval ships to watch the proceedings and even send a jokey message over communications system congratulating everyone on a successful launch.
The 60-ton missiles are supposed to have an accuracy down to a few metres even as they fire over 4,000 nautical miles or more. But the data going into the missile in June 2016 showed up as in error as the launch was taking place and, somewhere along its ballistic trajectory towards the outer atmosphere, the button was pressed to self-destruct.
If all this had been publicised at the time it might have struggled to make it far on the airwaves. David Cameron had just announced he was standing down, the country was gripped by the aftermath of the Brexit referendum and people were wondering what would come next.
As it has unfolded, many will come away with one main memory of this saga: the Prime Minister’s awkward answers as Mrs May repeatedly tried to avoid answering questions on Marr on Sunday on BBC1. It’s not a good look and people will remember the “tells” when next they think the PM is uncomfortable under questioning.
Quite who leaked it is always one of the tantalising questions in these situations. The Russians will have known this didn’t go to plan. The Americans likewise.
Several MPs suggested that the Government might have sat on the information because they wanted to win the Commons vote on the contract for the replacement nuclear submarines that would fire Trident missiles. But that vote was won by 472 votes to 117, the Government majority boosted by many Labour MPs going against their leader Jeremy Corbyn and backing the government.
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