SNP's plan to expel nukes from Scotland while sheltering under Nato's nuclear umbrella is a childish fantasy – Euan McColm

If an independent Scotland undermined Nato’s nuclear deterrent by insisting the UK’s submarines leave Faslane, it may not be welcomed into the alliance with open arms

I wonder whether there’s a greater waste of pubic money than the Scottish Government’s current project of publishing regular papers which purport to answer – once and for all – key questions about how independence would work. It’s not that there’s no need for this information. When the SNP led the Yes campaign to defeat in the 2014 referendum, a common criticism was that those in favour of breaking up the UK had failed to explain how a range of issues – from currency to the border with England – might be addressed in an independent Scotland.

And, so, in principle it was a good idea for First Minister Humza Yousaf, on succeeding Nicola Sturgeon last year, to recognise these gaps in the nationalist case and promise answers. Since then, the Scottish Government has produced a series of documents of such pitiful quality as to be embarrassing.

Unsurprisingly, none of these papers gets close to answering fundamental questions about the mechanics of independence. Rather, their civil servant authors regurgitate the same blithe assertions upon which the Yes movement depended a decade ago. A recent paper on the economy, for example, could be summarised as “here are some successful small countries. an independent Scotland would be small, therefore it would also be successful”.

There are good strategic reasons for the UK's nuclear deterrent to be based at Faslane (Picture: James Glossop/WPA pool/Getty Images)

Squaring the Nato-nuclear circle

This week, it’s the turn of the tricky nuclear weapons issue. The Scottish Government’s latest paper is every bit as incoherent as the SNP’s position on the matter. It has long been a central part of the nationalist message that leaving the UK would mean the removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland.

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But while this might go down a treat with the Yes movement’s radicals, many Scots accept the arguments in favour of a nuclear deterrent. In an attempt to square this circle before the independence referendum, the SNP changed its position on Nato membership. Delegates voted at the party’s 2013 conference to U-turn on its opposition to membership of the organisation. That promise to remove nuclear weapons remained.

The Scottish Government’s latest paper tells us, without evidence, that an independent Scotland would quickly remove nukes from the Clyde and join Nato. This rather undermines the SNP’s message on nuclear weapons which, for decades, has been that their existence is intolerable and that Scotland has been used as a dumping ground for British missiles. The nationalists cannot, credibly, be both anti-nuke and in favour of sheltering beneath Nato’s nuclear umbrella.

Independence fantasy

Despite nationalist spin that nuclear weapons are located in the Clyde because it pleases malevolent British ministers for this to be so, the truth is they’re there for strategic reasons. Anyone with access to a map can see why it is in the UK’s, including Scotland’s, interests for the fleet to be based at Faslane

Apparently, an independent Scotland could undermine Nato by forcing the move of nuclear submarines to a less convenient location and, in return, be welcomed into the organisation and afforded the protection of its members’ nuclear arsenals. This is childish stuff. Fantasies of an independent Scotland calling the shots on the international stage might swell the nationalist breast but in the real – and increasingly volatile – world, the SNP needs a coherent position on nuclear weapons.

A paper promising, without a shred of proof, Nato would meet all of Scotland’s demands doesn’t reassure.