THE SNP have demanded Boris Johnson apologises to Scottish shipbuilding for a raft of job losses and a litany of broken promises from his party following his visit to Rosyth.
Ahead of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Better Together politicians told Scotland that independence would cost Rosyth hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs, and that voting No would “ensure the future of Scotland’s shipbuilding industry”.
In 2014, Rosyth dockyard employed 2000 skilled staff but since, under Tory rule, 450 jobs have been axed.
In 2016, Rosyth dockyard lost out on an aircraft carrier contract when UK Government contractor, Serco, opted for a Dutch company instead.
On top of failing to protect jobs, the Westminster government has consistently broken promises made to Scottish shipbuilding on the Type 45 and Type 26 programmes.
The UK Government promised the Clyde yards decades of work building 13 Type 26 frigates, which was then reduced to eight.
So far, the UK Government has only signed a contract for the first three, with a vague promise to sign a contract for the other five in the “early 2020s”.
Spending on Trident has continued to increase, with the UK Government announcing a 40% increase in the number of warheads just last year.
They also pumped around £500m into storing and maintaining 20 obsolete submarines since the 1980s, seven of which are in Rosyth.
SNP defence procurement spokesperson, Dave Doogan MP, said: “Successive Westminster governments have over promised and under delivered for Scotland’s shipbuilding industry time and again.
“We were told in 2014 that the only way to protect shipbuilding jobs was to vote ‘No’, yet since then Rosyth dockyard has lost at least 450 jobs and lost out on MoD contracts.
“The North Atlantic, and Scotland’s security has essentially been side-lined by the Tories at Westminster and this is wholly unacceptable.”
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