Scottish independence looms over future of UK nuclear deterrence

ONE of the top lines in the snappily titled Integrated Review Of Security, Defence, Development And Foreign Policy, unveiled yesterday by the Prime Minister, is the proposal to extend Britain’s stockpile of nuclear warheads to make, in the PM’s words, Britain “match-fit for the modern world.”

In one corner of the United Kingdom, the proposal has gone down like a fast-diving submarine heading for the seabed. “One thing is absolutely clear – the UK Government’s plans to expand the stockpile of nuclear weapons are utterly unacceptable to the Scottish Government,” Scottish Justice Secretary

Humza Yousaf said. “Nuclear weapons are morally, strategically and economically wrong. Our opposition to Trident remains unequivocal.”

While Scotland is part of the UK, Mr Yousaf can take whatever view he likes of Trident warheads – they will continue to be a central plank of Britain’s defences and stored in Scotland, along with the Trident nuclear submarines from which, in the terrible event of a nuclear conflict, they would be launched.

But there is a definite possibility, if not a probability, that the SNP might achieve its aim of independence some time in the next decade, if not before. What then for Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent?

At the moment, the boats are ported at Faslane on the Clyde and the warheads kept at Coulport, on Loch Long. After yesterday’s exchanges between Mr Yousaf of the SNP and Boris Johnson, it could hardly be more obvious that the arrangement would be severely tested, if Scotland were to break away.

Some in the South West have pointed to Devonport Dockyard as the obvious place for Trident boats to be based. That is a genuine option – but storing the warheads in or around Devonport presents major risks. Currently, when these deadly weapons are loaded into the Trident boats, the only centres of population nearby are the villages of Garelochhead and Ardentinny. If that same operation had to be carried out at Devonport, the quarter of a million residents of Plymouth would be right alongside.

In 2014, when Scottish independence was also looming in advance of a vote in September of that year, the experts were clear. “You can’t have Trident missile bodies laden with rocket fuel and nuclear warheads near a city of quarter a million people – the UK regulatory authorities would be very uncomfortable with that,” one said.

Other options for storing the warheads put forward in the past include Falmouth and Portland, Dorset – although both have their challenges. More outlandish still was the idea of using Ile Longue in Brittany, probably less likely today, now that the UK has exited the EU.

The easy option would be to leave the Trident boats and the warheads in Scotland and for the UK government to pay rent to a newly independent Scottish government.

A pragmatic administration in Edinburgh could see the sense in that. Mr Yousaf’s declaration, however, on the “wrongness” of nuclear weapons reminds us of the challenge.