In a letter to the Herald, Brian Quail, stalwart of Scottish CND, expresses his believe that “Only full independence can rid us of the menace that is the Trident system”. Perhaps Mr Quail missed the report in the Guardian of the previous day that the SNP is considering joining Nato (if they win the referendum which they will not, but that's a different matter). The report also reveals a 2008 survey showing that 53% of SNP supporters agree that staying with Nato is in Scotland’s interests. Even if an "independent" Scotland did not join Nato, there is a strong possibility that the UK Government would pay a generous amount to lease the Faslane facilities and an impoverished new country would gratefullly take the dosh. So, even if the UK is broken up, Trident is likely to stay where it is for the foreseeable future.
It's not surprising that CND and others were intitially taken in by Nationalist promises but I am surprised that they are still clinging to the belief that the SNP will deliver. In
its desire to farm votes from any source the SNP has made promises to every
protest group and sectional interest imaginable including anti-nuclear weapons,
pacifists, (while keeping army and RAF bases) anti-nuclear power,
environmentalists, anti-environmentalists, anti-abortion groups, pro-choice Christians,
republicans, monarchists, students, teachers (while building no new schools),
nurses, pro-business, progressives, homophobes, anti-tax Tories, pro-public
service campaigners and a host of local pro and anti-development groups.
So
much contradiction is bound to lead to disappointment, particularly when
“independence” is redefined on a daily basis by the whim of the First Minister.
Patent NatMed. Cures what ails you. Honest!
I’m no great fan of Trident renewal either: it seems like a lot of dough for very little bread, (especially when we are building aircraft carriers with no planes to put on them!), but I'm very much afraid that Brian Quail and CND must now join the republicans and public sector
workers and pro-choice and students, teachers and parents and all the other
people who voted SNP in response to promises that their particular brand of
snake-oil would cure all ills, and accept that a pro-Nato SNP would never get
rid of Trident, any more than it abolished student debt, or abolished the
Council Tax or built schools “brick-for-brick” or any other of a string of
empty Nationalist promises.
