Jeremy Corbyn insisted the controversy over Trident renewal provided an opportunity to “bring people together” as he visited Scotland yesterday.
The veteran left-winger also confirmed there would be a debate on the issue at the Scottish Labour party conference at the end of this month.
He made his first trip north of the border since being elected party leader as Lord Sugar, who resigned from Labour after the general election, declared people should “move to China” if Mr Corbyn is ever voted into Number 10.
Backlash over the revelation he would never press the button to launch a nuclear strike also continued, with Sir Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, warning Mr Corbyn may be unable to take on the role of prime minister as a result.
Speaking in Edinburgh, the Labour leader said: “There is a lot of opportunity here both for educating people and bringing them together.
“There’s also a lot of people in the military, often very high ranking officers in all three services, who don’t necessarily go along with the idea that Trident replacement is a good idea.
“They would rather see an emphasis on more conventional weaponry, because the issues and threats and instabilities in the world are not necessarily state wars against each other.”
The last day of the Labour conference in Brighton was dominated by disquiet in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet after he said he would not authorise the use of the nuclear deterrent if he became prime minister.
Shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle branded the comment “unhelpful”, adding that it “undermined to some degree” her review of policy.
Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, who has vowed to resign if Labour adopts a policy of unilateral disarmament, said any prime minister had to have the option because “that is the whole theory on which deterrence is based”.
The SNP has called on Mr Corbyn to end the “chaos and confusion” within Labour over Trident renewal, while Prime Minister David Cameron said the comments showed Labour could not be trusted with Britain’s national security.
Mr Corbyn, who sampled some Irn Bru during his trip, also reclaimed Labour as the “party of working Scots” and backed Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale’s plans for fair taxes to close the attainment gap between the “richest and the rest” in classrooms around the country.