Pro-indy vote ‘would have aided terrorists’

A vote for Scottish independence in 2014 would have had “cataclysmic” repercussions and “undoubtedly” would have strengthened terrorist groups such as IS, a former secretary general of Nato has claimed.

Lord Robertson said that the “ripple effects of separation in the United Kingdom would have had dramatic consequences”, adding that the enemies of the West would “certainly have had a field day”.

The Labour politician, who served as defence secretary in Tony Blair’s government between 1997 and 1999, warned in 2014 that a yes vote would have been a “devastating blow” to Western solidarity.

And he reiterated his claims in a new interview held in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of Scotland voting in favour of devolution.

Lord Robertson said: “If the second military power in the West had broken into two, if Scotland had become a separate state, if the UK was broken into two, the effect on Western solidarity would be cataclysmic without any shadow of a doubt. We have a nuclear deterrent...breaking it up, and with the SNP’S objective of stopping that nuclear deterrent, that would have left all nuclear power in the West in the hands of Donald Trump and perhaps the French.”