Brendan O'Hara: Scotland's anti-Trident voice will be heard

I find it absolutely extraordinary that in the middle of a political and economic crisis, the first act of this new Prime Minister will be to ask Parliament for a blank cheque for a brand new generation of nuclear weapons.

Trident no more flash demo at The Mound in Edinburgh. Picture: Ian Georgeson

She will do it primarily to try and heal the self-inflicted wounds of her own party from their EU referendum battles, while seeking to heap maximum embarrassment on a divided Labour Party.

And as the cost of Trident soars, what does this mean for the already delayed Type-26 programme? What will the consequences be for the Apache helicopter or F-35?

Since nuclear weapons arrived on the Holy Loch in 1961, Scotland has protested against them.

I’m proud that tonight I, and at least 56 parliamentary colleagues from Scotland, will vote against the Tory plan to spend hundreds of billions of your money on renewing the nuclear deterrent.

Thanks to support by most Labour MPs, it’s almost certain the government will win.

But by voting against Trident, Scotland’s MPs will be representing, not just the opinion of our constituents but also the view of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the SNP, the Scottish Labour Party, the Greens, the STUC, Scotland’s faith communities and great swathes of Scottish civic society, all of whom are opposed to nuclear weapons.

Today, Scotland’s voice will be heard in Westminster: we do not want nuclear weapons in Scotland.

l Brendan O’Hara is MP for Argyll and Bute, which includes Faslane naval base, and is SNP defence spokesman at Westminster