A shadow cabinet showdown over Labour's policy on the future of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent has been postponed.

Jeremy Corbyn's top team had been expected to discuss the proposals in the party's defence review at their weekly meeting at Westminster.

However it is understood that the debate has now been referred to a future meeting.

While there was no immediate explanation for the move, it follows a warning by shadow home secretary Andy Burnham that the differences within the party on the issue may be impossible to reconcile.

The divisions within the Labour ranks were underlined when shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry briefed MPs and peers on her thinking at a stormy meeting on Monday evening.

Afterwards, Ms Thornberry, who like Mr Corbyn favours unilateral disarmament, was branded "waffly and incoherent" by one critic.

She told the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting she wanted to carry out the ongoing review of Labour policy on Trident in an "atmosphere of mutual trust and respect".

But in the face of hostile questions from MPs and peers, she was forced to tell them there was "no point trying to shout me down".

Mr Burnham, who is a supporter of Trident renewal, said the meeting "confirmed something many of us had long suspected: that the debate on Trident in the Labour Party is going to be very difficult".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today: "There are two positions here which are difficult to reconcile - maybe impossible to reconcile - and the party has got to find some way of accommodating those positions and move forward and don't let this issue take over everything."

In an apparent dig at Mr Corbyn's suggestion that a new fleet of nuclear submarines could be deployed without warheads, he said: "There are some hybrid options that have been put forward but I think most people have found that they just don't work.

"So the discussion has been in the party: 'can you realistically try to find a halfway house?' and most people have concluded that you can't.

"Therefore, if there are two positions that are deeply held on both sides but can't easily be reconciled, the party needs to find some way of accommodating that and allowing people to move forward and actually move on to other issues and hold the Government to account."

Ms Thornberry played down the criticism of her performance at the PLP, suggesting a handful of critics had "kicked off" but were not representative of opinion in the party.

She said she maybe "shouldn't have been drawn" on the detailed argument against Trident at the meeting, where she was criticised for drawing a parallel with the need to replace Spitfire fighter aircraft.

However she said there were "more subtleties" than reported to Mr Corbyn's suggestion that submarines could be retained but not carry warheads.

Technological advances may mean the submarines which carry the nuclear missiles will soon no longer be undetectable, undermining the effectiveness of the deterrent.

"I had been challenged and told that it was either Trident or nothing, that it was a binary option, and our view is that it's not necessarily a binary option," she told the Today programme.

"In order for them to work at all you have to be able to say, with confidence, 'I have a big stick, my stick is larger than your stick' and both sides need to be confident that actually that threat is a real one.

"If we are being left behind by technology, if there is a possibility of cyber attack, if there is the development of drones, then actually these nuclear deterrents may not in fact be nuclear deterrents and that is the issue we need to debate."