Scottish independence: US debates UK break-up

ALEX Salmond’s plans to remove Trident submarines from Scottish waters and pull out from NATO are to be raised in the US, in a fresh sign of the global ramifications of Scotland’s independence referendum.

The issues will be discussed next month in Washington at a Friends of Scotland caucus, which includes 66 congressmen and senators.

Organisers say senior US politicians are only just beginning to examine the implications for America if Scotland was to become independent and the UK to break up.

Senior defence figures have now questioned whether the UK could continue to have nuclear weapons, currently based at Faslane, if an independent Scotland insisted they be removed, because of the cost of finding and maintaining a new base. On NATO, independence would have a further impact on the US as the SNP says it wants Scotland to pull out of the transatlantic alliance.

On the economy, organisers suggest that the break-up of the UK could shake markets across the world.

The event, entitled Political and Economic Implications for the United States Should Scotland Leave the United Kingdom to Become an Independent Nation, will set out the key US interests.

“The geopolitical ramifications on US foreign and economic policy, and the impact on our national security strategy of an independent Scotland have not been well aired in the USA,” an advance notice states. “Before coming to power, the Scottish National Party long called for a neutral Scotland, on the model of the Republic of Ireland, to include Scottish withdrawal from NATO and the removal of nuclear submarines from their base at Faslane, in western Scotland. What would be the impact for the US if these things were to happen?”

The notice also says that the impact on global markets of a break-up of the UK could be “quite destabilising, with ripple effects on the American economy. Few Scottish-Americans have publicly focused on these aspects”.

The event, on March 28 – which will be kicked off by a video address from Alex Salmond – is organised by the US National Capital Tartan Day Committee. Its chairman Robert Murdoch, a noted Pittsburgh lawyer, will be one of the speakers.

Murdoch said last night: “This symposium will be useful for an exchange of ideas on the issues surrounding independence. Will there be a Scottish pound and an English pound, for example. My gut feeling is that independence will not happen. But if Scotland were to vote for independence, it could ultimately strengthen the ties with the US.”

Last week the first signs of US concern over independence came in a report written by a veteran US Congressional defence analyst, Robert L Goldich, which suggested that Scottish independence “might not be too good” for American defence and foreign investment.

Goldich raised questions over how much Scotland would cooperate with Nato; the armed forces, intelligence and antiterrorism services of “a truncated United Kingdom”; as well as those in other western democracies, including the US.

A spokesman for External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “Our international friends are watching the debate on Scotland’s future keenly, and those in the US can be sure that an independent Scotland will continue the strong and longstanding bonds of friendship and cooperation between our nations.”

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: “A separate Scotland would need to have thousands of discussions with hundreds of countries to establish even the most basic of formal relations. The UK’s longstanding relations are already working for Scotland across the globe.”