The flaw in the SNP’s plan to ‘build a new Scotland’

The SNP seems determined not to stick to the day job of actually running the country. Scotland’s government this week launched a publication called ‘Building a New Scotland: an independent Scotland’s Place in the World’. It set out policies for something that doesn’t exist – an independent Scotland – in areas in which the devolved administration has no responsibility.

Angus Robertson, the party’s constitution and external affairs secretary who launched the report, hardly seemed fazed by those facts: he spoke fluently and familiarly about ‘defence, peace and security’ and Scotland’s role as ‘a good global citizen’, even if his party’s plan is unlikely to ever see the light of day.

Robertson set out a series of propositions which cannot logically be reconciled, while blithely refusing to acknowledge any obstacles. The individual building blocks of his policy were that Scotland would seek Nato membership, that it would build ‘strong relationships’ with its immediate neighbours, and that it would require the removal of nuclear weapons from its territory in ‘​​the safest and most expeditious manner possible’.

This is all, essentially, about missiles and submarines, but there’s a big problem. The United Kingdom’s nuclear capability is provided by four Vanguard-class submarines armed with Trident II ballistic missiles, one of which is always on station somewhere in the world, providing continuous at-sea deterrence. Their home is HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane, 40 miles from Glasgow, and the nuclear warheads are stored and loaded a few miles away at Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport on Loch Long. These facilities cost billions of pounds to build and maintain from the 1960s onwards, and another £1.7 billion in improvements at HNMB Clyde was announced in 2017. Most importantly, they are unique in the United Kingdom.

An independent Scotland would, therefore, demand that the United Kingdom effectively take its nuclear submarines out of service and suspend its deterrent capability. The Vanguard-class submarines have nowhere else to go. The Royal Navy’s other operating bases, HMNB Portsmouth and HMNB Devonport in Plymouth, do not have the appropriate combination of facilities to maintain and repair the submarines and handle and store the Trident warheads. Building a ‘new Faslane’ would cost many billions of pounds and would take, at a reasonable estimate, between 15 and 20 years, assuming a suitable site could be found. So the ability to use the deterrent, which had been available every minute of every day since April 1969, would end.

Expelling the Royal Navy from Faslane would cause an almighty stooshie, however fervently the SNP might desire ‘strong relationships’ with its neighbours. But accession to Nato requires the unanimous consent of existing members, so while Scotland effectively demanded the UK disarm unilaterally on one hand it would be asking it to approve its alliance membership on the other. That, surely, is simply a non-starter.

The Royal Navy’s ballistic missile submarines are also a critical part of Nato’s nuclear capability. The Strategic Concept, the alliance’s fundamental plan and statement of values, says that nuclear weapons are ‘the supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance…Nato will take all necessary steps to ensure the credibility, effectiveness, safety and security of the nuclear deterrent mission’. These forces are provided by the United States, France and the UK. With the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency placing doubts over America’s commitment to Nato, the loss of the United Kingdom’s contribution would surely be unacceptable.

Robertson glided smoothly over these objections at yesterday’s press conference. He conceded that the UK would ‘clearly rather not’ relocate its nuclear submarines – a masterpiece of understatement – but put aside concerns by stating that ‘in these circumstances, it will’. The idea put about before the 2014 referendum that the UK might in the end lease Faslane and Coulport as sovereign bases was some years ago dismissed by the Nationalists. Voters are entitled to ask how, when and at what cost the relocation will happen.

Something would have to give. Some were troubled that Robertson would not commit a future SNP government to signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an international agreement with 93 signatories to eliminate such weapons, but any softening of the party’s opposition would create huge internal strife. But the speedy departure of the nuclear submarines from Faslane and the UK approving Scottish membership of Nato are incompatible.

If the SNP wants to spend time and public money imagining how it would conduct itself running an independent country, then it has to answer serious questions. How would it get rid of nuclear weapons and get into Nato? Pretending there is no problem is dishonest; providing an answer is hard.