BRITAIN would need permission from the United States in order to use its nuclear deterrent, experts say, as the government goes forward with a £71 billion purchase of nuke-carrying US jets.

And increasing Britain’s nuclear arms stock will tie the country to President Donald Trump’s foreign policy goals, which disarmament campaigners say could bring us closer to the brink of disaster.

Speaking at an event organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in London on Saturday, experts, campaigners, and politicians condemned Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to buy at least 12 F15-A jets.

The planes, capable of carrying so-called tactical nuclear bombs, were not “properly costed” when the government first laid out the deal, only later revealing that their price was some £71 billion, CND general secretary Sophie Bolt said.

Describing Sir Keir’s “mad scramble” to increase spending after Mr Trump requested Nato members increase arms expenditure to 5 per cent of their GDP, Ms Bolt said: “There is a blank-cheque approach to nuclear weapons.

“There was no real proper costing for how much this would be. The health sector is constantly having to save here, save there. Whereas the [Ministry of Defence] will later just say: ‘Oh sorry, we’ve overspent.’

“This will not make us safer. They are US fighter jets. All the money is going to the US. And the planes launch US nuclear bombs, so that means they are basically under Nato command, meaning they are under the US nuclear umbrella of Nato.

“It’s the US that decides when and where these bombs will be dropped. And we are concerned that Trump is going to be gung-ho for these bombs.”

Discussing the planes’ so-called tactical nuclear bombs, she said: “They make the threat of nuclear war being made much more likely and the British government is totally at the heart of this.”

Outlining the link between the genocide in Gaza and the campaign against nukes, Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said the British public should “resist the process to renormalise Israel” after the October ceasefire.

And Your Party co-leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The new nuclear weapons being promoted and proposed by the UK are intrinsically dangerous: the more weapons there are, the more danger there is that they will be used.

“Instead we should invest the funds into housing, health and education — and increasing, not cutting overseas spending.”