UK's Labour backs down on vote on scrapping nuclear weapons

LONDON — Britain's Labour Party has decided to leave the country's nuclear weapons alone.

The opposition party's new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, opposes atomic weapons, and had said the issue would be debated at the party's annual conference.

But after Labour-supporting trade unions said they would vote to keep nuclear weapons and protect thousands of defense jobs, delegates dropped the issue from the conference agenda yesterday.

It's a setback for left-winger Corbyn, who wants the party to consider policies long considered off the agenda, from nationalizing industry to diverging on foreign policy from the US

He said earlier yesterday that Britain should get rid of its "weapon of mass destruction."

Britain has been a nuclear power since the 1950s, and both Labour and Conservative governments have long supported atomic weapons.