BEFORE I read the detail below the headline in Saturday’s National (Former SNP MP calls on John Swinney to scrap Trident commitment) I had correctly guessed it was referring to former Glasgow MP Stewart McDonald, once the SNP defence spokesperson at Westminster.
McDonald has often been perceived as soft on nuclear weapons and many have privately speculated over the years that he may be a closet lover of a Tartan Bomb. Some of his past statements went beyond soft to bendy, not least when he tried to rehabilitate the word “deterrent”. It’s a word which does have a wider meaning in international relations circles, but in Scotland. Here “The Deterrent” equals the nuclear bombs and we know it is a euphemism coined to support them.
In a recent Ponsonby and Massie Podcast, McDonald said that the party policy on Trident removal timescale was two years. Actually it’s nearer five, possibly longer. The motion I think he is referring to is one passed unanimously by conference in 2021 and reads as follows:
“Timescale for removing nuclear weapons from Scotland
• Conference notes the endorsement, by all SNP candidates in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as outlined in the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge.
• Consequently, and in line with the provisions of the TPNW, conference calls upon a future SNP government of an independent Scotland to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland within three years of forming the government.”
There are several points that need to be teased out.
Firstly, the timescale. The time between the successful independence referendum count, the processes involving dissolution of the Union, the subsequent first sovereign Scottish Parliament election and the establishment of a new Scottish Government of whatever political hue is generally regarded as at least two years. Look at the terms of the above motion and we are looking at five to six years minimum for the removal of Trident from the Clyde.
READ MORE: Stewart McDonald's position on Trident comes as no surprise
Secondly, it is a fact that every SNP candidate went into the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election having signed the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons Parliamentary Pledge. Many parliamentarians worldwide, including in EU and Nato countries, have signed it.
A sovereign Scotland would become one of a growing number of member states of the UN that have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 93 governments have signed it and 70 of those have had it ratified by their sovereign parliaments. Note that this was part of the SNP manifesto in an electoral contest in which the SNP did rather well. And SNP members support this policy knowing that the nominally “UK” Trident is totally dependent on and controlled by the USA – it could be Trump’s finger on the Faslane Trident button.
Thirdly, when a country signs up to a particular international law, that law applies to them. We will be committed to a complete ban on nuclear weapons, and on all activities related to their creation or use.
As a state party, as the UN language calls it, Scotland would be able to call on the services of the relevant agencies of the United Nations like the International Atomic Energy Agency, something SNP CND outlined in our Roadmap for Trident Removal paper of 2019.
Fourthly, the first pillar in the case of a Trident removal strategy is the Royal Navy’s own operating procedures. Every professional navy prepares alternative basing arrangements.
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Bill Ramsay, SNP CND’s convener, asked Labour’s then shadow defence secretary John Healy (now the Defence Secretary) about it at a Royal United Services Institute meeting and suggested that the alternative basing arrangements for the Vanguard Fleet should be made public. Healy understandably said that they are an operational matter and would remain secret.
This means that on the morning after a successful referendum count the naval staff would be dusting down their existing alternative basing plans.
A final point about McDonald’s angry tilt at thin air – his reference to the SNP leader not resolving this non-issue to his satisfaction. John Swinney is, in McDonald’s words, to play the role of policy “bastard”. From that I assume that Mr Swinney is to impose McDonald’s will on the party. So much for party renewal in terms of its democratic governance and inclusion.
To be clear, I’m not taking a shot at Nicola. During her time she delivered excellent electoral results. Even in a democratic society, a leader who delivers such results gets away with a lot in terms of imposition of policy not passed by the conference. But here we have McDonald bitterly complaining that she abided by a policy that was, and is, popular in the party and a vote winner in 2021.
Jean Anderson
SNP CND Secretary
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