THE shadow defence minister John Healey visited Barrow for the second time this year to make Labour's case for a future government in charge of the nuclear deterrent. 

Mr Healey MP argued that Labour has moved on since Jeremy Corbyn premiered the party on November 2.

He said: "Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a Labour MP, and the Labour Party has changed. Never again will Labour go into a General Election not trusted in national security. We are committed to building all four new submarines in Barrow."

Mr Healey said that he had recently been on a trip to Washington to discuss defence. He has also met with US and Australian officials for the AUKUS project. 

He described the AUKUS project where Barrow will build submarines for the Australian Navy as a 'decades-long commitment.' 

However, he and the Labour candidate for the next General Election Michelle Scrogham said that the UK government also needs to invest in Barrow services, such as in healthcare and infrastructure, for the AUKUS programme to succeed. 

In October, delegates from the Barrow and Furness branch passed a motion at Labour's conference in Liverpool saying that the party's support for NATO, the UK's nuclear deterrent and armed forces 'will remain absolute.' 

In the 2019 General Election, the Barrow and Furness seat shifted to Conservative after decades of Labour rule until John Woodcock became an independent MP in 2018. 

Former defence minister Ben Wallace said in the run-up to the election: "Everyone knows Jeremy Corbyn does not believe in the use or deployment of these submarines and he will kill the shipyard by a thousand cuts."

John Woodcock, who is now in the House of Lords, told The Stepping Out of Line Podcast in March: "[Jeremy Corbyn had] spent the last 40 years of his life opposing Trident nuclear weapons and would inevitably, no matter what ridiculous suggestions of alternative work for Barrow's shipyard and new uses for submarines, shut down the industry in my town."