Labour councillors have lined up to attend a defence workers conference designed to protest Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Trident push.

The GMB union is pushing ahead with the event, which could be held in Scotland, despite the Labour leader's proposal to save thousands of defence jobs by keeping the submarines and sending them to sea without nuclear warheads.

A source said: “Labour councillors are keen to have their voice heard as well.

"They warn it is not just workers who would be affected if all these jobs were lost, it is entire communities."

Mr Corbyn's proposal of 'subs with no nukes' has been denounced as "ill-informed" by one of his own former shadow defence ministers.

Other Labour MPs also questioned whether the policy would breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK supports.

The row came as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that he hoped the final Commons vote on renewing Trident would be "not be too long" away.

Kevan Jones, who quit the Labour frontbench after the pro-Trident Maria Eagle was sacked as shadow defence secretary, warned that the UK’s nuclear capability could not be turned "on and off like a tap".

His attack came as Ms Eagle's replacement, the unilateralist Emily Thornberry, lined up against Mr Fallon in the Commons for the first time.

At the weekend Ms Thornberry confirmed her party is considering the "Japanese option" - retaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons without actually possessing them.

Mr Jones told MPs that “despite ill-informed comments from my own party at the weekend with regards to these jobs” when it came to the skills needed “you can't turn them on and off like a tap. "

Fellow Labour MP John Woodcock, who represents Barrow and Furness where the Trident submarines are built, suggested that decommissioning and then recommissioning warheads could be incompatible with the UK's international obligations.

Defence minister Philip Dunne said that to design and build a nuclear-enabled submarine took decades "and those skills not only take a long time to develop, they can't be switched on and off - they are the very forefront of engineering capability in this country.

"Building a nuclear submarine is more difficult than sending a man to the moon."

Mr Dunne also denounced the plan as an "extraordinary contortion" from the "champagne socialist salons of Islington", the London suburb both Mr Corbyn and Ms Thornberry represent.

Scottish Secretary David Mundell also dismissed Mr Corbyn’s proposal for unarmed submarines.

“I think it is a blatant attempt on one hand to say we are anti-Trident but on the other to please (Unite union boss) Len McCluskey and Unite in terms of the jobs," he said.

“I don’t think it is a solution that is focused on the security of the United Kingdom.

“The security of the UK is best served by the renewal of Trident.”

Last week the GMB warned that the union would not go "quietly into the night" over Trident.

Details of the 'conference of the workers' are expected to be announced later this week.