SNP’s Trident policy plays into Putin’s hands

A Herald article Jun 25,by Neil Mackay: SNP’s Trident policy plays into Putin’s hands

It complements my post here on 23 Jan 2022: Remember it was Ukraine who gave up the Bomb. This is a politics writer who has been trendily CND ever since the Cold War 80s days when it was so hegemonically the left fashion around its period in control of Labour. So when the Soviet Union existed, he was CND in face of it. But no more on face of Putin now after Ukraine.

A conversion like Einstein's in 1934. Saying that Putin's Russia now poses the same choices.

As left wing Unionists pointed out during the ref, indy won't remove the Bomb from Britain. It would just move it, and it would still have the whole island's safety as its meaning and red line, because letting an invader take Scotland just opens the door to England too. But instead, in a British election, as is on now, the concern is against the SNP exercising leverage upon British nuclear choices.

Remember it was Ukraine who gave up the Bomb

CND's drooling fantasy that Scottish separation would force British nuclear disarmament has always been recognised as nonsense by every CND-supporting unionist, like George Galloway. Defence of the whole island will always by definition be England's or rump Britain's defence interest: so in practice we would still be under the British nuclear umbrella. So the problem that the nat cult includes a delirious cult faith against nuclear weapons is not a real objection for voters who are not of the peer pressured left's faithful mob and who value keeping nuclear weapons.

That means, by our location we are luckier and not placed the same as Ukraine. But if the CND argument caught in and advanced and changed European defence the way it wants, that would change. So arguing with them about Ukraine is important.

CND aint worked for Ukraine, has it ?!! Had the bomb when it became indy. Bowed to fashionability to give it up in 1994. Now look where it's at. Now we interestedly await to see the invasion defeated by NVDA civil resistance, hope the CND faithful are holding your breaths for it, confidently. The NVDA civil resistance I was always infuriated to hear described with dedicatedly faithful confidence by an 80s schoolmate.

This is the big one for them, this is the Russian-threatened country that unilaterally disarmed ! The European-Ukrainian Nuclear Mistake -Obviously so.

it was bluff and bluster by the Scottish govt too

Especially in arguments on the web, folks on the Yes side always claim to be the underdog with the media unionist and loaded against them.

The coverage this morning of the so-called exposee about currency union, coming from an unnamed minister who we as yet only have the journalist's word for exists, is a quite contrary example. It has been covered in a totally Yes biased way. Any media unionism, even by the BBC, has been totally swamped by the priority of getting the government. Why don't they want to get the Scottish government too? Is it taking so long for the penny to drop about what Sturgeon's rush to welcome the unnamed minister's comments, which were in fact an offer of a deal involving a significant climbdown for her side too, has indicated?

I have made the following bias complaint to the BBC:

Coverage of the Guardian's expose on an unnamed British minister's comments on a currency union. It was treated as only emabrrassing the No side and the British parties, and being an admission that the refusals of a currency union have been just a bluff. Yet if, as is not yet proven, this minister actually exists, his/her quoted comments are actually just an offer of a deal, a currency union in exchange for nuclear bases. That is not a one-sided granting of a currency union so it was misleading to treat it as if it was.

For parity of coverage between both campaigns, the following should have been noticed and analysed. As named minister Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the comments, that implies a Scottish government openness to making the proposed deal, and that indicates their position of refusing to keep Trident and the Clyde nuclear bases has also just been "bluff and bluster". So logically the story is equally as much an embarrassment for them and the Yes side as for the other side.

bombed out

Big row in the SNP over the U-turn on Nato membership. The CND folks saying us belonging to Nato will let England drag its feet over removing the Bomb from the Clyde.

Nato has shifted away from being the defensive alliance it was originally, to one that starts colonial wars, but luckily the EU has an interest in replacing Nato's original defensive alliance role as part of closer union. So, nicely, the CND side of the SNP will not get what they want anyway. In practice Scotland will still be under an EU nuclear umbrella, as well as under the English one because England is hardly going to stop seeing an attack on the other part of the same island as an attack on its won security too, is it?

What both sides are getting wrong, again, is that the SNP is just one party, its policy at one time is not the determiner of what a whole new Scottish state's defence alignment will be as part of the independence deal. Indeed, no defence policy can be offered as part of the independence deal, because the deal is not supposed to be a 1-party state. Our new state's defence alignment would be just as open to shifting by different governments and as the world around us changes, as Britain's is.

It is misleading to run a Yes campaign at odds with this obvious fact, treating our future defence policy as part of campaign. The campaign should look beyond just the new state's first government. It is not even assumable that the first government will be SNP. By climbing down from keeping that assumption sneaked into the campaign, the SNP can spare itself this defence policy row because it should not be at all as crucial to the Yes campaign as both sides say it is.

the National Conversation suppressed some responses

When the National Conversation did a consultation about holding the independence referendum, the website announced that some of the submissions received were being withheld from the public. Their own discretion was in control of making that choice. Here:

http://www.blogger.com/www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/05/24131023/0

This blog is for publishing what was censored, and opening to scrutiny the merits of why the SNP government should wish to suppress it. So where is the "harmful to others" content? and where is there any offensive content, apart from views they disagree with? If you spot any, come and comment here and point it out.

Perhaps other writers of the blocked submissions would like them put online here too? I expose here that they have just chosen to suppress views they disagree with and find embarrassing to their own views' merits. Including on issuesd to with racism and with the status of nuclear weapons, both would be important issues in the referendum. That filtering makes for a fiddled secretive and partial consultation process.