PLANS for an independent Scotland to set a deadline on getting rid of Trident will be voted on at the SNP’s party conference next month.
A resolution calls for a “roadmap for nuclear disarmament” to be drawn up alongside a detailed practical proposal for how to remove the weapons.
“Conference welcomes the continued support for nuclear disarmament and, with the impending inevitability of independence, we need to set out a clear timetable for removal of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil and waters,” it says.
“Conference believes that we need a practical description of the process and timescale to safely remove nuclear weapons at the very earliest opportunity on Scotland regaining our independence.”
It adds: “Conference therefore agrees that we should develop a credible road map that has at its end point the removal of the Royal Navy’s nuclear armed and nuclear powered submarine fleets from Scottish soil and the closure of related support bases on Scottish soil.”
The resolution was put down by Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn branch along with Glasgow Kelvin constituency branch.
Bill Kidd MSP, co-convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Nuclear Disarmament, said: “The UK’s nuclear arsenal burns a hole in the defence budget to the tune of £2.2 billion per year for weapons of mass destruction that we will never use and that Scotland does not want.
“Independence gives Scotland the opportunity to banish these costly, dangerous and unnecessary weapons from our shores for good.”
Nuclear weapons have been situated controversially at the Royal Naval base at Faslane for more than 50 years and have been the focus of ongoing opposition and protests.
The scrapping of Trident played a major role in the independence referendum, with the SNP pledging nuclear weapons would have no place in an independent Scotland.
A National Audit Office report last year found the cost of renewing the ageing Trident system which would include the commission of four new Dreadnought submarines – which would be based at Faslane – could be more than £50bn, and said it would be “crucial” to find ways of cutting the bill to make it affordable.
The resolution on a nuclear free independent Scotland is among 30 on the party’s provisional agenda for its Spring conference which will take place in Edinburgh on 27 and 28 April.
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