SNP Nuclear Gymnastics = Fantasy Politics

The latest SNP policy gymnastics on NATO and nuclear weapons exposes another reality involved in breaking away from the UK.   See http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/snp-considers-trading-share-in-nuclear-arsenal.18193816

I have been a member of CND since the early ‘80s and have campaigned within the Labour Party for most of that time to see the UK give up its nuclear deterrent.  It’s been an uphill and not always very popular –in some party circles - struggle, but sometimes you need to drive change from within.

 Right now, we should be arguing the case against replacing or upgrading Trident.  Not only would that be a better moral position, but would save billions of pounds over the next few years that could be far better spent on investment in our economy, transport (we could have a motorway to Inverness!) as well as other national infrastructure.  

What Salmond and the SNP now seem to be suggesting is that they want to join Nato (for reasons which I suspect are very little to do with defence strategy and a lot to do with not losing support in advance of the independence referendum) but only if Trident and the nuclear facilities are “moved” to somewhere else in the UK.   The costs involved in re-locating Trident to another location will be enormous compared to de-commissioning, but the SNP seem quite happy to propose that UK pick up that bill.  Why on earth would taxpayers across the UK agree to that?  Fantasy politics.

It seems to me that those of us who believe in a nuclear free Scotland are far more likely to achieve that – hard work though it will be – with a UK wide campaign to stop the spending on Trident and argue the case for de-commissioning all our nuclear weapons long term.

An independent Scotland risks still having nuclear weapons on the Clyde but even less influence over what happens to them.