Read Part I of this article

The cost of the renewal of Trident is hotly disputed. The government says £23.4 billion, CND calculates £100 billion. Suffice to say that it will be enormous.

The system’s supporters say that it will be money well spent in order to maintain a independent British deterrent, to keep our place at the “top table.”

Labour could, if it wished, counter the bombast by demonstrating that it is no more independent than a company car in the hands of a junior employee, as it can only operate with the permission of the US.

Key components for the British nuclear warhead are manufactured in the US, alongside those of its US counterpart, before assembly at Aldermaston by an Anglo-American consortium. One phone call from the US president could halt production. The US has done this before. Chinook helicopters sold to Britain and costing £422 million were stored unused for eight years because the US refused to release the classified software source code that allowed the aircraft to fly at more than 500 feet above ground.

Britain does not own the Trident missiles — they are leased from a pool supplied and controlled by the US. All targeting and guidance requires the permission of the encoded US military GPS. WikiLeaks revealed that the US National Security Agency has built in software that would allow it to override British control. The missiles are serviced at King’s Bay, Georgia.

The Trident replacement is often termed an “insurance policy” against future unknown threats. That is nonsense — insurance is compensatory, not preventative. It is only activated after the event. There can be no compensation for a radioactive wasteland. Unlike the days of the cold war, there is now no known enemy that needs to be deterred by nuclear weapons, and our government does not control those currently in its possession.

Supporters of Trident often advocate multilateral nuclear disarmament as an alternative to scrapping the weapons system but no international initiatives have taken place in this arena for many years and none are planned. The government has identified terrorism as the main threat to our national security but it is not likely that nuclear-armed submarines will greatly impress Isis and al-Qaida.

Margaret Thatcher hated the Ministry of Defence. Fed up with its lack of spending controls she said that if she had a bomb she would “put it under that place.”

In 2014 there were 159,630 service personnel in Britain. There are only 12 brigades in the British army but 158 brigadiers (salary £101,000 per annum). There are more generals than operational tanks in the army and fewer ships than admirals in the navy. The average reading level of a recruit to the British army is 11 years of age. More than one in 10 recruits are 16-year-old boy soldiers. One in four is under 18, too young to be sent into combat — although 17-year-olds were found to have served in Afghanistan, due to MoD “error.”

Only 20 countries — none in Europe — allow 16-year-olds in their armed forces. These include North Korea and Iran.

The ministry employs 190 lawyers, increased from 130 in 1999, plus a further 80 contracted civilian lawyers. In the years 2005-13, members of the armed forces and their families launched over 36,000 claims for compensation against the MoD.

The Military Covenant is a commitment by the government to provide a duty of care for its servicepeople. However, many families live in sub-standard accommodation on grim estates where the homes are blighted by mould, loose electrical fittings and thin walls. Defence Secretary Michael Portillo privatised the 45,000 units in 1996 on the advice of consultants who were paid £4 million by the MoD.

The Army Families Foundation found that the state of these homes was the top concern of the families, with two in five worried about repairs and maintenance. The widow of a soldier killed in action will receive a weekly pension of just £135.15 if she is aged under 40 and has children. She will be paid £21.20 for the first child and £23.75 for other children.

The top brass have no such worries. Many live in luxury homes in the plushest parts of London and the countryside. A former chief economic advisor to the Treasury said: “What we have is a relic of the 1920s class system in the armed forces that is perpetuated through a package of privileges and remuneration to senior officers which they couldn’t maintain in civilian life.”

The rents the officers pay are capped — the taxpayer picks up the tab for the remaining market value. Fees for the private education of their children, mainly those of senior officers, costs the taxpayer £84 million a year, with school fees ranging from £9,087 to £30,252 per annum.

High-ranking military officers and senior officials within the Ministry of Defence are supposed to ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely on new equipment. However, many of them have an eye on the job prospects that will follow their retirement after 20 years’ service. They become close to the military suppliers and are rewarded with lucrative positions in those companies in order to maintain contact with their recent colleagues and to lobby for new contracts.

A total of 3,572 former MoD officials and officers moved through the “revolving door” to private suppliers between 1996 and 2012. In the other direction, defence company staff are seconded to work at the MoD. This cosy relationship is more than a conflict of interest, it verges on corruption, as the excessive cost of equipment is paid from the public purse, converted into company profits and passed into private pockets.

There are many more defence-related issues that could be exposed, including arms sales to repressive regimes, bullying and sexism in the armed forces. These would allow Corbyn and his team to move onto the front foot in the debate and to argue that the real interests of Britain would be best protected by objective threat assessment, not expensive and overblown attempts to boost military prestige.

Labour could highlight three main points: 1. Successive governments have wasted billions on unnecessary weapons, 2. Britain has no world military role independent of the United States, 3. The Ministry of Defence needs re-organisation and a change of direction. As a first step towards this, Corbyn and the new shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle could demand an independent investigation into the unhealthy relationship between the military equipment suppliers and the ministry.

Traditionally, Labour defence ministers have been deferential loyalists plucked from the obscurity of the backbenches.

The military establishment quickly captured them, without much of a struggle. Eagle might be a good appointment, as she is probably smarter than most of her predecessors and accustomed to dealing with overbearing men in or out of uniform.

It would be a wise move for her to create an independent advisory panel (outside of the MoD) that would be qualified to provide objective analysis and advice. She might then wish to reflect on her past support for Trident. In any case, Labour does not need to be defensive about defence.

• Tim Webb is a former Assistant General Secretary of the trade union Manufacturing, Science and Finance (now part of Unite) and dealt with the British defence industry for over 25 years.