Kenny Farquharson: SNP heading for Nato U-turn in referendum battle plans

HERE’S a wee prediction for you. By the time we get to the referendum on Scottish independence, the SNP will have ditched its iconic policy on pulling out of Nato. How do I know this? By paying attention and reading the runes.

By my reckoning, at least three SNP Cabinet secretaries are opposed to the party’s manifesto promise to opt out of the world’s most powerful military alliance. Westminster hacks are currently speculating about the identity of the three Tory cabinet ministers who, it’s claimed, disagree with the UK government’s NHS reforms. Here in Scotland we have no such problem. The position of the SNP’s Nato refuseniks is a matter of record.

Let’s name names. When Mike Russell was standing for the SNP leadership in July 2004, he gave this view of the party’s get-out-of-Nato stance: “This is a policy which was born out of the Cold War and has never been substantially revisited. We are in a different world and one in which most of the new nations of Europe have been clamouring to be part of Nato. As long as we can be a non-nuclear member, as Canada and Norway – and indeed most other countries – are, this will not only give our defence policy relevance but ensure we can explain our stance, which is hard to do at present.”

Mike is not alone in this heretical view. Kenny MacAskill echoed his Cabinet colleague’s sentiments in a newspaper article in June 2005. A change of course on Nato, he argued, was essential if an independent Scotland was to be a good neighbour and ally. “We must recognise the security requirements of our near neighbours. If England is not assured of that, they will be reluctant to see us part.

“We owe it to others – whether our friends in Norway or our kinfolk in Canada – to assuage any fears they may have about the security implications for them. That means being prepared to maintain our security commitments. At present, they are served through Nato.”

The debate called for by these two senior Nationalists never materialised. Why? Because the last time the SNP looked seriously at its defence policy it resulted in a humiliating rebuke for the party’s leader at the time, John Swinney.

On taking control in September 2000, he made it known that the Nato policy needed to be revisited. It was due to be debated at the SNP conference in September 2001, but in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks it was withdrawn from the agenda. Cynics – who, moi? – speculated this was largely because the leadership was going to get kicked all around the conference hall for merely suggesting such blasphemy. Instead, a review was set up under Roseanna Cunningham, which eventually restated and reinforced the party’s hard-line anti-Nato stance.

That, however, was then. As we report in our news pages today, a new book by Professor James Mitchell of Strathclyde University paints a surprising picture of what SNP activists think. By a margin of more than two to one they think Nato membership would be in an independent Scotland’s best interest. This is an extraordinary finding that won’t have gone unnoticed by the party hierarchy – Mitchell is an old friend of many senior figures in the SNP, including Salmond himself.

My prediction of a U-turn is also based on what I’ve been hearing about the travels of senior SNP figures in Scandinavia. Word has it that Angus Robertson, the defence spokesman and referendum campaign chief, has been spending a lot of time in Norway and Denmark, which are full Nato members. I hear that Robertson recently visited the Danish defence ministry and a Danish navy base, as well as a Norwegian navy base. Was he there to lecture the Danes and Norwegians on the error of their ways in being part of the evil Nato empire? Or was he investigating how small independent European nations can operate within Nato’s formidable and still-growing family? The latter, I’ll wager.

The current SNP policy on Nato is a complete mis-match with the party’s entire approach to the referendum. The strategy is all about reassurance. Don’t worry, say SNP leaders, you’ll hardly notice the difference if we’re independent. We’ll still have the Queen. We’ll still have the pound. We’ll still have Britain’s Got Talent on the telly. We’ll actually still be British, if that floats your boat. We’ll just have independent control of our own future. Ripping an independent Scotland out of Nato, with all the geo-political tension and argy-bargy it would undoubtedly cause, entirely mitigates against this strategy. And that’s why it will be jettisoned.

Once the Nato policy is history, the SNP can add yet another layer of emollient reassurance to the case it will put to the Scottish people. Worry about independence in the big bad world? No need, when we’ll be safe under the umbrella of the world’s most powerful fighting force. As an extra bonus, Scotland will have done the responsible thing, and honoured its obligations and commitments as a good neighbour and a sound ally.

Here’s a second prediction. The SNP will conduct this U-turn without too much internal fuss. The party has changed. Its core membership always contained a committed cadre of left-wingers for whom Trident and Nato were articles of faith. But, as Mitchell shows, these are now in a minority. These days the SNP boasts a far bigger membership of well over 20,000 – the tally grew by a full 8 per cent in the three weeks following last month’s announcement of the referendum date.

It’s probably fair to say these are primarily people who have been caught up in the excitement surrounding the referendum and want to be part of a historic moment. They’re not interested in protecting ancient SNP shibboleths. They will do what Salmond tells them. And that includes the historic decision to embrace Nato. Remember where you heard it first.