Press TV -June 25, 2013
The Scottish government has U-turned on its pledge to remove Trident nuclear weapons from the Scottish soil if Scots vote for independence in the 2014 referendum.
The ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) said in a set of proposals for defending an independent Scotland that Faslane naval base, which is the home to British Trident nuclear weapons, could remain a sovereign UK territory after the Scottish independence.
The proposal made by thinktank the Scotland Institute for SNP will enable Britain to continue to use Scotland as a launch pad for its four Trident nuclear-armed submarines for an estimated 20 years until it builds a new Trident home within British borders.
This comes as SNP defense spokesman Angus Robertson said last year that the Scottish government is “against weapons of mass destruction being in our waters” and pledged SNP’s “solid commitment” to the “earliest possible withdrawal of Trident from Scotland”.
SNP has been historically opposed to both Trident and NATO.
The party voted to ditch its anti-NATO policy in October 2012 during their party conference in Perth.
The resolution on NATO was put forward by Robertson himself, who at the time claimed the party will retain its 30-year-old anti-nukes policy and any entrance into NATO will be on the condition that the alliance agrees to Scots’ removal of Trident from their soil.
However, the new proposals reveal that Trident will probably be the subject of the next resolution at a party conference.
The proposals also question the extent of SNP’s commitment to rule a sovereign Scotland as keeping a British sovereign territory on Scottish soil will seriously undermine that concept.
Related articles
- ‘UK must scrap useless, costly nukes’ (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Scotland Loves Trident? (bellacaledonia.org.uk)