THE next generation of Labour MPs will pose a serious challenge to their party’s support for Trident renewal, prominent candidate Catherine West predicted yesterday. 

Labour’s Hornsey and Wood Green candidate, who is set to unseat Lib Dem minister Lynne Featherstone, is among a majority of would-be MPs opposed to Trident. 

A massive 81 per cent of candidates from all parties have pledged to vote against spending £100 billion on Trident in 2016, according to  results of a CND survey released yesterday. 

Exactly 80 per cent of Labour candidates in target seats support disarmament. 

And Ms West said she and dozens more anti-nuclear Labour candidates are ready to take a “more determined stance” over nuclear weapons if they are elected in 42 days’ time. 

“I think we’re in a unique position at the moment because there’s a lot more support for getting rid of Trident than people think,” she said. 

“We have chronic levels of inequality and people are wanting us to address that.”She added: “Now more than ever people are crying out for a courageous government. So I’m confident we can win the argument on Trident.”

Ms West, former leader of Islington Council, was speaking to the Star at the launch of CND’s Vote Out Trident manifesto in Parliament. 

She was among candidates and MPs from five parties who, in a rare display of unity so close to an election, put aside differences to stand together against Trident. 

Green leader Natalie Bennett, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards, Lib Dem candidate Kelly-Marie Blundell and SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson also spoke.

Mr Robertson said a hung Parliament could help anti-nuclear MPs stop the next government forcing through Trident renewal. 

“No one political party is likely to have a majority,” he said. “So it’s entirely possible the SNP, Plaid and the Greens will hold the balance of power.

Part of the influence and power we would exercise is to choose to spend £100bn more wisely.”

CND parliamentary group chair Jeremy Corbyn said a “very tight and confused” situation would require “the utmost assertion across parties of people who are opposed to the replacement of nuclear weapons.”