Don’t compare U-turn on Nato to Clause IV

Published on 28/10/2012 00:00

AS A veteran SNP member, I must take issue with your editorial claim that the party’s policy change on Nato at its Perth conference was tantamount to New Labour’s ditching of Clause IV (“SNP’s ticking timebombs”, 21 October).

There is simply no comparison between this policy change and Labour’s Clause IV, which was an integral part of Labour’s constitution. Within an SNP context the nearest equivalent is the party’s commitment to the achievement of Scottish independence, and the associated belief among the majority of its members –at least among my own, admittedly older generation – that all other policies which the party may from time to time adopt must be subordinated to that overriding objective. That – and nothing else – is the SNP’s “Clause IV”.

This point is illustrated by the fact that this latest policy change was simply a reversal to the SNP’s defence policy back in the 1970s, when our long-standing opposition to the retention of nuclear weapons on Scottish soil was tempered by a commitment to remain in Nato. It was not until the 1981 Aberdeen conference that this policy was replaced by a new commitment to withdraw from Nato in direct ­opposition to the wishes of 
the party’s then leader, Gordon Wilson, and at a time when 
the internal influence of the self-styled “socialist and republican” ’79 Group was at its peak.

As for your concluding claim that “to remain anti-nuclear while professing loyalty to Nato is an untenable position”, I can only observe that if that is really the case, no one seems to have told Norway and Denmark, to name but two current non-nuclear Nato members.

Ian O Bayne, Glasgow