Independence: The Military
The Independence Referendum and Defence
Dr Phillips O’Brien, Director, Scottish Centre for War Studies, University of Glasgow
“The west
of Scotland
not only
hosts all of
Britain’s
nuclear
submarines,
it also is
the base for
Britain’s
nuclear
weapons.”
The questions of defence and
security, surprisingly to some,
have been some of the most
hotly debated and contentious
of the independence referendum
campaign. The sheer number
of different topics connected
with defence means that it has
rarely been out of the news.
There have been clashes over
issues as diverse as the nuclear
weapons now based in Faslane,
shipbuilding on the Clyde, the
future of the historic Scottish
Regiments, and whether or not
Scotland should be a member
of the NATO alliance. Needless
to say, with that many issues,
different interest groups and
political pressures have exerted
themselves in many different
ways.
One of the best ways to see these
conflicting pressures is in the
rather tortuous discussions over
Faslane and Britain’s nuclear
deterrent. The west of Scotland
not only hosts all of Britain’s
nuclear submarines, it also is
the base for Britain’s nuclear
weapons. The ‘Yes’ campaign
has received consistent and
energetic support from a group
of campaigners, sometimes
associated with the Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament (CND),
which would like all nuclear
weapons withdrawn from
Scotland almost immediately
after independence.
Therefore the ‘Yes’
campaign has had
to stress its antinuclear credentials
regularly.
On the other hand,
basic economics
mean that the
jobs attached to
these facilities are important.
At present, the MOD employs
around 6,500 civilian and
military personnel on the Clyde,
and therefore it is one of the
largest employers in one of the
economically less well-off parts
of the nation. This has led the
‘Yes’ campaign and the Scottish
Government to try and craft an
anti-nuclear policy that also would
protect many of these jobs.
Since the launch of the Scottish
Government’s White Paper,
what is interesting is how the
anti-nuclear stance, in the short
term, has become a second
priority to the protection of
jobs. This can be seen in two
parts of the document. In the
first case, far from requiring
that the rUK’s nuclear weapons
be removed from Scotland as
soon as possible, the Scottish
Government actually set out a
very flexible policy on Trident.
While it was stated that the
Government has a ‘view’ that the
weapons should be removed by
the end of the first Parliament
(2020), this in no way is a hard
and fast deadline. Instead, it
opens the door for the nuclear
weapons to remain in Scotland
until the government of the
rUK decides what it wishes to
do with Trident. On the other
hand, it would allow any Scottish
government considerably more
time to decide what it would
base in those facilities once
the nuclear weapons had been
removed.
The second area was in the
definition of a non-nuclear
Scotland. The White Paper did
not call for a non-nuclear policy
along the lines of New Zealand,
which bans all nuclear weapons
from its soil and territorial
waters at all times. Instead,
anti-nuclear seems to be defined
for Scotland as meaning that
the Scottish government will
not build, maintain or base
nuclear weapons. However, there
is no provision to ban them
from visiting warships. This
important proviso is a way of
reassuring NATO, which defines
itself as a nuclear alliance, that
a Scottish government would
take the necessary steps to make
Scotland a
co-operative
part of the
organization.
In the end,
the strong
political
pressure
being placed
by one
element of the ‘Yes’ campaign
seems to have lost out to
the need to appeal to those
employed by the MOD in the
west of Scotland, and crucial
international partners such as
the United States.
Another way that the politics
of independence seem to
have arisen is the question
of shipbuilding on the Clyde.
In November 2013, the UK
Government announced that
all of the Type 26 Frigates (the
next generation, most advanced
warship that Britain will build
during the next 20 years) will
be constructed on the Clyde.
Yet, at the same time, they
announced that the actual
construction process will not
begin in earnest until 2015. It
seems to be a classic example
of a carrot and stick political
approach to the question. The
west of Scotland shipyards have
received priority over those in
England – Portsmouth will now
be downgraded to a facility that
can refurbish existing warships
but will have a great deal of
difficulty constructing new
ones. At the same time, those
communities eagerly anticipating
that work were made aware that
if independence were to be voted
in, the contracts could still be
shifted.
Together, these two issues show
the different political impulses
driving the discussion of defence
within the independence debate.
Ultimately it is the economic
benefits of independence or
remaining in the Union that have
become the focus of the debate.