Do as we say, not as we do.

The Labour Chancellor, and possible future Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has signalled his intention to breach the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty by recommissioning Trident at the very same time that Britain, the US and others are pressuring Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium and citing the Treaty in their demands.

The Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty asks that country's that currently possess nuclear weapons make plans to disarm and demands that non-nuclear country's desist from attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.

By announcing his intention to proceed with the recommissioning of Trident, Brown joins President Bush - who has announced plans to develop a new range of "bunker busting" nuclear weapons - as a western leader who demands that the rest of the world do as we say rather than as we do.

Kate Hudson, chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: "At this point, when we face no nuclear threat, to decide on a new Trident replacement is beginning a new nuclear arms race."

Labour MP Ian Gibson, an opponent of Trident, said many young Labour backbenchers had been weaned on CND and had not lost those early political views.

"So it may not be as easy [to agree to replace Trident] as people might think because the chancellor says so," he told BBC News 24.

Another Labour backbencher, Gordon Prentice, asked: "How are we going to persuade other countries not to go for nuclear weapons when we are spending millions of pounds not disarming but upgrading our nuclear weapons?"

One has to seriously wonder how long the nuclear west can hope to get away with this basic hypocrisy. We seem to be demanding that we have the right to retain the power to destroy other nations at the touch of a button whilst simultaneously demanding that other nations - especially those who are as technologically advanced as we are - desist from making such technology available to themselves.

And with a President in the White House who is the first ever to have threatened to use nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear states, one has to say the desire to join the nuclear club has probably never been more profound.

The logic behind our argument is one of Empire. It's the same logic that the British used when it's tentacles covered half the globe and it set out on it's mission to "civilise the natives."

It's the argument of a discredited period of history who's values should have been long ago abandoned. At the root of this argument is the notion that we get to say who is "civilised enough" to possess such weaponry and who is not.

It should come as a surprise to no-one when the rest of the world rejects this particular brand of racism and colonialism.

For Blair to make this argument will surprise no-one. But for anyone hoping that Brown represents a return to Old Labour values, this announcement should serve as a warning shot across the bows.

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Tags: Trident, Brown, Blair, Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, NNPT,