Leader: Defence is now a pressing issue

Published on Sunday 22 January 2012 00:00

ONE cheer for Alex Salmond. This newspaper has been arguing for some time that the First Minister must make clear his intentions about how Scotland would move to independence, and what the practicalities of that transition would be. After the past few days of political skirmishing on how to defend a sovereign Scotland, we know a little bit more about the SNP leader’s views on this important aspect of the independence project.

But although we have a little more information, we have little clarity.

Defence is the argument du jour only because, in broadcast media interviews, Salmond and his defence spokesman, Angus Robertson, were drawn into a more detailed discussion of these issues than usual. The heightened interest in the future of Scotland and the future of the UK did the rest. This weekend there is a welter of claim and counter-claim to sift through, and – as our political editor Eddie Barnes shows in his analysis on page 15 – some searching questions for the SNP on the coherence of its strategy, such as it is known.

This is an odd way to have a discussion about the future of a nation. Salmond must surely have realised that if he did not bring his detailed independence arguments to the table, the arguments would instead come to him. The exchanges in recent days have produced more heat than light, and light is what this debate needs. One piece of information we learned from the First Minister last week was that an independent Scotland would need one airbase, one naval base and one mobile army brigade. What we do not know is what these planes would be used for, what the ships’ function would be, and where – and in what circumstances – this mobile brigade would be deployed. In short, Salmond has told us a little of what an independent Scotland’s armed forces would look like, without telling us what they would be for.

It is also becoming clear there are serious questions to be answered on the implications of an independent Scotland for the defence capability of the remainder of the UK (rUK). What happens to the rUK’s nuclear deterrent, currently stationed in Scottish waters at Faslane, and when does this happen? How does the rUK secure itself on an island it shares with a separate nation state with a separate military, which is not a member of Nato? If it was not clear before, it is crystal clear now that the process of negotiating and resolving all these issues could take years. If those negotiations only began after a Yes vote in an independence referendum, we have the odd prospect of a Scotland that has declared its independence but does not know how that independence will work, or how independent it will actually be in practice. This scenario also suggests the SNP intends to go into a vote in 2014 with these issues – surely a fundament of any nation state – not yet fully resolved. That simply will not do. Yesterday a spokesman for the First Minister said: “The independence debate will come down to which vision of Scotland’s future inspires and enthuses people the most.”

This is true as far as it goes. But the Yes campaign in this referendum cannot rely on positivity and mood alone. Scotland should only be asked to make such a historic decision after a hard-headed and clear-sighted appraisal of all the implications. When the First Minister announced autumn of 2014 as his preferred date for the vote, that initially seemed a long way off. Today, after the first skirmishes on defence, and a fresh appraisal of the work yet to be done by the Nationalist side of this argument, it does not seem too far off at all.

Comments

There are 7 comments to this article

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

7

Dr. James Wilkie

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 10:09 AM

I should have added that this can all be read on the SDA website (www.scottishdemocraticalliance.org), especially Scotland in Europe and Scotland in the World in the International section. ……………………………………………………………………………...……. Security and Defence, in the same section, is also highly relevant to the present discussion. Some of us at least are not taking this discussion lightly, and have approached it from a global standpoint, which is the only feasible angle in the present circumstances.

• Report Unsuitable

6

Dr. James Wilkie

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 09:58 AM

#1: Independent Scotland will have to join up to 50 international organisations as a matter of necessity. These include the four intergovernmental all-European organisations with up to 56 member states each. Three of these (not NATO) are repositories of important international treaties that would affect Scotland in or out of membership. ………………………………………………………………………………… The exception is the half-European EU, membership of which is in no way essential to Scotland's welfare, and indeed is already positively harmful in respect of its unacceptably serious drain on the Scottish economy as well as the devastating social and cultural upheaval it has wreaked in Scotland. The EU is an ideological construct that is already decades out of date. It was designed for a world that has now disappeared and does not fit into the modern political system of global interdependence. ………………………………………………………………………………… A Scottish application for EU membership would be a retrograde step that would nullify most of the advantages of independence. Scotland in a union of 500 millions would be in a position ten times worse than the present one we are with good reason trying to escape.

• Report Unsuitable

5

SlyFifer

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 08:34 AM

Just what are the SNP doing ?. There is solid information out there regarding Security and Defence, I read it on the SDA web-site. Who are the SDA anyway and why don't we hear more about them if the answers are already out there ?. Is it that the media, the MSM and the BBC etc still harken back to the good old days when the SNP were a minority. Very possibly and it's only dawning on them now, a year after the devastatingly powerful win by the SNP last May that the political landscape in Scotland has changed out of all recognition on the ground, but not in the column inches nor the studio.

• Report Unsuitable

4

The Harder They Come

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 08:15 AM

1. Will the new state rUK have automatic entry?

• Report Unsuitable

3

Beachdair

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 02:06 AM

#1 Captain Fantasy - No doubt Mr Salmond will have this clarification before Autumn 2014. Why you are so hot for the profoundly undemocratic, dictatorial, bureaucratic, imperialistic and often incompetent EU anyway?........................................................ The UK’s membership of the EU has been the greatest disaster to befall Scotland since the 1707 Treaty of Union. The EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) alone is costing Scotland considerably more than £1,500 million in lost wealth creation every year. The EU has destroyed tens of thousands of jobs through the CFP. And the incompetence of the EU’s management of the CFP continues to this day.............................................................................................. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU controls all “marine biological resources” (i.e. from whales and basking sharks down to the last frond of seaweed) in Scotland's Exclusive Economic Zone seas. Under existing EU legislation, all national waters right up to the beaches will come under exclusive EU fisheries competence from the end of 2012, and will be regulated under EU law and not Scots law. Since the Lisbon Treaty also transfers powers over energy to Brussels, fishing is obviously only the thin end of a wedge that will eventually see all marine resources coming under Brussels control. So much for Scotland’s oil... ............................................................... Scotland’s share of the UK’s annual EU “dues” was £845 million in 2010, up from £532 million in earlier years because of Scotland’s proportion of the IMF and direct aid to the Eurozone. £845 million is more than £162 for every man, woman and bairn in Scotland – after all EU "grants" have been accounted for. That cost will rise every year. The EU takes Scotland’s money, deducts its own huge overheads, and returns only a minute portion of the remainder to Scotland in "grants”, which are only a tiny fraction of our own money being returned................................................................................... But you want to do anything that will destroy Scotland, don't you?

• Report Unsuitable

2

Beachdair

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 01:53 AM

This editorial makes many good points. It is obvious that the SNP has not studied independent Scotland's realistic security and defence requirements in any depth. Instead, Alex Salmond has come up with an on-the-hoof 'plan' which amounts to taking over a piece of the UK's existing resources. This 'plan' makes it apparent that the SNP do not fully understand that independent Scotland will have significantly different national interests than rUK. ................................................................................................ The SNP is very weak on international affairs generally, especially on Europe (not just the EU) and on security and defence. This is not a criticism, just a statement of fact that is easily explainable by Scotland's being cut off from the world for 300 years. It will take some time to overcome this situation, but meantime plans have to be made for what comes after independence, and Colonel Fairweather was perfectly correct in what he stated in a recent Scotsman article. ...............................................................The Scottish Democratic Alliance (SDA) has had the security and defence planning situation in hand for some time, as the very comprehensive discussion paper on its website shows. That policy starts from the premise that security has to be considered on nothing less than a global basis (the 911 terrorist attacks were organised from a number of centres in four continents), and it is being steadily augmented and refined in the light of feedback from experts. …………………………………………………………………...............Scotland may have no serious enemies in terms of national states, and most modern threats are not susceptible to military solutions anyway, but there is still sufficient danger from political and religious fanaticism and other sources to justify a Scottish Defence Force planned around close cooperation with NATO, the OSCE and the United Nations. …………………………………………………………………………… The SDA shares Col. Fairweather's view, expressed in a recent Scotsman, of Scotland's prime need for special forces, and is confident that these can be provided within Scotland's own resources. The SDA's still developing Security and Defence discussion document can be read in the International section of its website: www.scottishdemocraticalliance.org. The Scottish Democratic Alliance (SDA) is a registered Scottish political party which seeks independence from the UK. The SDA is currently operating as an SNP-supporting think tank. We fully support the SNP as the fastest track to independence, but realise that the SNP has not yet developed some of the critical policies it will require. One of these is a security and defence policy. ............................ ............................................................................................................. The SDA recognises that independent Scotland will have different security and defence issues than the rUK. For a very realistic and workable policy that puts the interests of independent Scotland first, see scottishdemocraticalliance.com slash International slash Security & Defence and scroll down to the PDF documents, which are available for free download.

• Report Unsuitable

1

іmmigrantwoman

Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 12:10 AM

Also what needs clarified is whether or not Scotland will have automatic membership of the EU. Salmond needs to get clarification and a definitive answer from the European Commissioner so the 'people of Scotland' know exactly what they are voting for. Why doesn't he do it? Is he scared of the answer?

• Report Unsuitable

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.