THE decision at the Scottish Labour party conference to reject the renewal of Trident has been labelled a "chaotic mess", by a rival MSP for the area.

But that claim has been rejected by a Labour MSP who believes that the SNP are "desperately seeking a grievance".

The vote, which took place over a week ago, saw the party north of the border adopt the position of scrapping the renewal of the 'nuclear deterrent', with over 70 per cent of delegates agreeing with the stance.

The SNP and Labour have since voted in the Scottish Parliament together in a rare sign of unity with 96 MSPs voting against Trident and 17 MSPs voting for renewal.

SNP member Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, has criticised the Labour party however as he believes that unless Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, adopts the stance for the whole party, it would be seen as "utterly meaningless".

He said: "We welcome Labour’s Scottish conference vote opposing Trident renewal but the truth is that unless they can convince their Westminster colleagues to vote against it in the House of Commons, their decision will be utterly meaningless.

“We now have an absurd situation where the leader of Labour in Scotland supports the renewal of Trident but leads a party that opposes it – while the party’s UK leader is opposed to renewal but leads a party that supports it!

“Labour’s position on Trident is a shambolic, incoherent and chaotic mess.

“And the fact that their Shadow Defence Secretary (Maria Eagle) has now said that renewal is nothing to do with Labour in Scotland and the Scottish conference vote therefore "does not change" party policy, simply reflects the reality that Labour in Scotland has little influence on UK Labour.

“In Scotland Labour conferences consistently voted against nuclear weapons throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but it did nothing to change UK Labour’s pro-nuclear policy.

“Only the SNP has consistently opposed nuclear weapons and voted against Trident renewal. The UK Government is now expected to spend an obscene £167 billion on replacing this nuclear weapons system – at the same time as slashing essential tax credits for low earners.

“Scotland’s national parliament by contrast will send a loud and clear message to Westminster that we oppose another generation of nuclear weapons."

Labour MSP, Margaret McDougall, believes that Scottish Labour have shown that they're not afraid to debate on the big issues and claimed that the SNP have been guilty of that in the past.

She said: "Whilst Kenneth Gibson MSP welcomes the Scottish Labour Party's conference vote opposing Trident renewal, he still seems to be desperately seeking a grievance.

"You’d think that he would welcome that the Scottish Labour Party had a vibrant debate and reached a democratic decision on Trident renewal. The Scottish Labour Party will now seek to influence the UK Labour party in to adopting the same position.

“There is nothing shambolic, incoherent or chaotic about it, the Scottish Labour party is free to decide on its own policy positions and we did so democratically through conference.

"We will never shy away from the tough debates or attempt to shut down the debate as the SNP did when it came to passing a motion banning Fracking, which didn’t even see the light of day at their conference.

“Frankly I think this is more to do with Kenneth Gibson MSP desperately trying to keep the SNP’s shameful position on tax credits out of the papers. Whilst the Scottish Labour Party has promised to reverse the tax credit cuts, the SNP have refused point blank to match our commitment.

"Until they match our commitment they can no longer claim to be anti-austerity or standing up for working families as they are just passing on Tory cuts that they have the powers but seemingly not the will to stop.”