Labour MPs Revolt Against Party Leaders, Overwhelmingly Reject AUKUS Pact as Threat to World Peace

In mid-September, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US announced the formation of a new security pact dubbed AUKUS. The pact’s creation sparked outrage in France – which lost a $65 billion submarine contract with Canberra. The UK and US promised to provide Canberra with the technology to build the subs at home instead.

Rank and file members of Britain’s opposition Labour Party have overwhelmingly condemned AUKUS as a “dangerous” alliance, notwithstanding shadow defense secretary John Healey and party leader Keir Starmer’s support for the new security pact.

A motion put before the party at its emergency Brighton conference Monday characterizing the alliance’s formation as a “dangerous move which will undermine world peace” was approved by over 70 percent of Labour’s delegates, with 29.65 percent voting against it.

The motion suggested that AUKUS would not help to promote stability in the Indo-Pacific, and urged the opposition party to reinforce its support for the enforcement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

At the conference, Healey supported the pact and promised that under a Labour government, London would “no longer be half-hearted about essential alliances and treaties,” and would increase its cooperation with allies in NATO, the Five Eyes intelligence partnership and the International Court of Justice.

Starmer, meanwhile, said that “increased cooperation” between the UK and its Australian and American allies would be a good thing.

The Labour-aligned GMB trade union also supported the pact as “a real opportunity for UK manufacturing” and suggested that opposition to AUKUS “undermines industries where jobs are under threat.” Hazel Nolan, GMB’s regional secretary, accused Labour’s rank-and-file of being “out of touch and on the wrong side of job creation once again” after the majority of members at the conference condemned the pact.

AUKUS promises Australia American and British assistance with nuclear reactor technology for a new class of nuclear attack submarines for the Australian Navy in exchange for new basing rights and other forms of cooperation. France, which lost a $65 billion contract with Canberra thanks to the agreement, slammed the three countries, accusing them of “stabbing Paris in the back” and of holding the negotiations in secret.

Other countries, including Russia, China and North Korea, have criticized AUKUS as an exclusionary security pact, and expressed fears that it may destabilize the Asia-Pacific region and spark a new regional arms race.