Scotland’s progressives can’t afford to be pacifist any more | The default stop-the-war, anti-nuclear position of most of the political class must change in the face of Russian aggression and American indifference
by 1-randomonium
Scotland’s progressives can’t afford to be pacifist any more | The default stop-the-war, anti-nuclear position of most of the political class must change in the face of Russian aggression and American indifference
by 1-randomonium
23 comments
(Article)
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On the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Scotland’s political classes are in a bit of a quandary. Everyone from the first minister down is crying “Slava Ukraini” and rejecting the abominable appeasement of Russia by Donald Trump. But are they fully aware of what this actually means? Are they preparing for war — the only way to ensure peace?
Si vis pacem, para bellum, as the Roman author Publius put it. Or “peace only comes through strength”, as Sir Keir Starmer paraphrased him at the Scottish Labour conference, insisting that “we have to be ready to play our role if force is required in Ukraine”. Strong words, which have been endorsed by John Swinney.
Yet, the default position of most of Scotland’s political classes for the past four decades has been a kind of all-purpose, stop-the-war, anti-nuclear pacifist moralism. Not anymore. From the first minister down, civic Scotland is being forced to consider Scotland’s role in restoring Britain’s threadbare defences and ask serious questions about when and how Putin’s aggression might be deterred, including by the potential use of nuclear weapons.
Yet, the SNP still wants to remove Trident from the Clyde. It is only ten years since the Scottish Labour Party voted to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent and only five years since it supported the then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s promise never to use it. The energies of Scottish CNDers have been devoted recently to campaigns against the US using bases in Scotland, such as RAF Lossiemouth. Well, they won’t need to worry about that anymore. The Yanks are gone. But is Scotland ready to assume the responsibility of replacing them?
Scotland suddenly finds itself in a crucial geopolitical position as the site of Britain’s nuclear weapons and the custodian of the Shetland-Faroes-Iceland gap, through which Russian nuclear submarines access the Atlantic. Have we woken up yet? The political classes — Labour and SNP — have been so used to bemoaning American aggression across the world in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan that they are having trouble coming to terms with a president who actually wants to stop wars.
Trump’s apparent pacifism has turned Scotland’s politics upside down. Even Swinney is now calling for boots on the ground in Ukraine. The first minister says he supports Starmer’s policy, adding that “any peacekeeping initiative must be fully capable and empowered to keep the peace”. Tough talk. But is he serious about possibly sending the flower of Scottish youth to the trenches of the Donbas? Scottish politicians aren’t versed in this language.
There has to be peace before it can be kept, and that implies acceptance of any deal struck between Trump and Putin over the heads of Zelensky or joining the Ukrainians in fighting Russia. Swinney still apparently believes that Russia can and will be defeated, even without US arms shipments, and that full Ukrainian sovereignty can be restored. I don’t think anyone else does.
Either way, if the first minister is serious about keeping the peace, he presumably has abandoned his party’s longstanding policy of removing nuclear weapons from the Clyde. Since the 1960s, when Polaris first appeared in Holy Loch, about the only consistent policy of Scottish nationalists, independence aside, has been the removal of nuclear bases from Scottish waters. The SNP is the only significant unilateralist party left in the UK.
The SNP says Scotland should be a nuclear-free zone. But Mr Swinney must realise that it is surely now inconceivable that, with Russia threatening to use nuclear weapons, Scotland would seek to dismantle the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent.
That is, assuming it is truly independent. The US no longer has military bases on the Clyde, though it has never been entirely clear how or when the Trident missiles carried by Britain’s Vanguard submarines could be used. The warheads are only leased from America and have to be sent back to the US nuclear stockpile every few years for maintenance. In the past, the matter was academic since it was assumed that Nato and therefore America, would have a decisive say on whether the nukes could be launched. That is all now up in the air.
Trump has made it clear he is not interested in guaranteeing the security of Europe and, so far as I am aware, has never mentioned how or when America might use nuclear weapons there. But it’s pretty damn clear that he is not going to use them against his mate Putin.
This means that, for the first time since the Second World War, the UK is going to have to ensure that it is truly independent of the US and ready and willing to use British nuclear weapons in the European theatre. That is a scary thought — especially since the last time the missiles were tested, in January 2023, they flopped ignominiously into the sea. Starmer will presumably be raising Trident when he meets Trump this week in Washington.
SNP and many Labour politicians spent most of the Cold War warning that the presence of nukes in the Clyde put Scotland on the front line in any conflict with the Soviet Union. The Cold War is gone now, along with the Warsaw Pact and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. But ironically the threat from Russia and the possibility of war have increased.
Russia has built an arsenal of hypersonic missiles that it claims can reach anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Glasgow and the Clyde will be firmly in the target zone. How do we combat this threat? The first minister has remained silent about Trident for too long. He must now state clearly what role, if any, our nuclear weapons might play in deterring any further Russian aggression.
Swinney has tacitly endorsed the prime minister’s policy of increasing defence spending, though I don’t think he accepts that this could mean cuts to public service budgets in Scotland. A new era of military austerity. But there is now a rearmament consensus between Swinney and Starmer and just writing that sentence involves a suspension of disbelief. I can’t think of any occasion when it could have been written in the past. The old SNP line was “bairns before bombs”. Is it now “guns before butter”?
They’ll deny they’re doing it but wriggle around it as usual.
Lol at Stop The War being the majority opinion of the political class when the entire political class voted for Iraq. Fucking meme word, political class means nothing anymore
What happened yesterday should be a wake-up call for the SNP.
Are these the same progressives who have been steadfast in their backing for military and humanitarian support for Ukraine?
Although defence is a reserved area, SNP MPs at Westminster have consistently voted in favour of military aid packages for Ukraine.
The SNP has also backed training Ukrainian soldiers in the UK (including at bases in Scotland, like Leuchars).
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Just what the world needs, cunts who’ve never been to war but have a boner for nuclear weapons and the possibility of using them. How small does your penis have to be to compensate this hard?
The future of warfare is drones not nukes. An island surrounded by naval drones and air drones plus anti drone defences is gonna be fine. Pity we are spunking money on ships.
There’s a distinct lack of understanding of the left on this issue, it seems. Maybe in part because we’ve not been very clear or explained things very well, I’ll accept maybe. But it’s not that the left is against spending more money on defending the country we live in. Of course we don’t want to be taken over. Even if it was a country I liked, I would still rather not live under occupation. Our issue with military spending has been that we’ve invaded countries, with troops on the ground and ended up spending billions in a war that WE could have avoided.
Gearing up in DEFENSE because someone else might start invading some shit is absolutely fair. I’m against offensive spending, absolutely fine with real defensive spending.
Of course the other issue is that we never seem to ask the rich to get their hand in their pocket to pay for the wars, it’s always poor people and that doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe this time it’ll be different, but I won’t hold my breath.
What kind of idiotic article is this. What impact would the opinion of even the entirety of the Scottish political body have on anyone.
Ok put it 25 miles outside of London
Is this like that thing where the ultra left and the ultra right meet somewhere round the back of the circle?
So the Boomers and Millennials are ready to throw the dice on survivability of a nuclear conflagration? 🤣
Can I just ask what the massive fear of war against Russia is all about? It seems they can barely get a few miles inside Ukraine.
To me it seems to be massive fear mongering and a further excuse to feed the massive black hole that is defence spending
I 100% agree.
Stephen flynn is my MP, I’ve been pro SNP.
I wrote to him recently to express my concern and disappointed on how terribly weak the SNP are with regards to this threat of war.
We should be pushing to rejoin the EU. We should be pushing for a joint EU army. Lives are at stake, doesn’t matter what we think Russia thinks they are at war with us and that we are weak now without the US, they have said so themselves.
Feels like this article woukd have made a great point half a decade ago. Who are the Scottish progressives that aren’t for supporting Ukraine?
It appears Danikov blocked me to stop me from responding so he can try and proclaim some sort of “victory”.
Here was the response I wrote;
1. The USA had nuclear weapons first, this is a very simple historic fact that most people know- they very famously used them, twice, in Japan. I know, shocking, this must be news to you.
2. One country having nuclear weapons doesnt deter other countries from also developing them, having nuclear weapons deters other countries who do have them from using them specifically on you. This is the most basic principle of MAD.
3. Nuclear testing and proliferation treaties already exist. The UK abides by them.
4. When did I say I was worried about them? I’d be more surprised if Russia’s nuclear weapons are even capable of leaving their silos given how poorly maintained and organized the Russian military is.
5. Can you quit it with the attempts at insulting me?
The anti-Faslane utopians are a busted flush. They need to realise that non-essential departmental budgets must be cut and funding for rearmament needs to rise immediately.
Pension reform, benefits reform, education reform, international aid must be reformed to make way for a Franco-British nuclear deterrent.
Garbage, who the fuck is upvoting this?
A wild switch these days that the “progressive” folks are pushing for continued war and the “far right” are wanting to end the killing.
It’s a small thing, but: there are LOTS of black bollards along the drive ways around Trump Turnberry. This is an excellent surface for adhesives. It is really easy to stroll past and whack a “fuck Trump” sticker (available at all good online stockists) on to these bollards. it would be a nice way to greet a potential trump visit to his fancy fucking hotel during his second state visit ….
Also, for the more adventurous, there is some lovely pot-hole free tarmac on these driveways just outside the hotel. A can of spray paint is all you need to spell out “SUPPORT UKRAINE. FUCK TRUMP AND COUCH SHAGGER VANCE” In nice big letters.
Very limited security. Just saying.
Lazy from the occasionally good McWhirter. In fact, we have gone through the looking glass into a bizarroworld where far too many progressives have actively wanted to escalate to WW3 out of blind zeal because Putin in their minds represents the spectre of “patriarchy” — which, by the exact same token, is why MAGA Republicans think the sun shines out of his arse and would be happy to see him conquer Western Europe.
I think it’s clear that there is an opportunistic element within some circles that sees a chance to kill off the post-Iraq War hostility to Western military actions.
Ukraine must be backed, to the hilt, no question. The American betrayal is on par with Chamberlain’s betrayal of the Czechs and the Spanish in the 1930s. But that doesn’t mean that we sign up to gung-ho, Blair-style militarism in every corner of the globe. Ukraine is not Iraq and should not be treated as such.
IMO there are a a cuple of things from a left-wing perspective that need to be emphasised over the next couple of years.
1) Rearmament on the level of the 1930s is necessary. To achieve defensive capabilities we need to expand our armed services (particularly our navy) to both counter Russia and ensure that Eastern Europe can be defended from imperial conquest.
2) The UK’s nuclear deterrent is not independent and is potentially compromised. The Americans are heavily involved in almost every aspect of Trident, including the technical elements. With the recent American-Russian rapprochement, it could be severely compromised. We cannot have the confidence in it being able to operate as intended. It is imo perfectly logical to be anti-nuclear and pro-reaarmement. I would rather see the billions spent on that expensive WMD system transferred to more useful and immiediate forms of defence, including cyberwarfare that will help us engage Russia now. Nuclear proliferation, though tempting, is the easy path to making ourselves feel safe. We have the French deterrent to cover us as an absoutle insurance policy, who’s security interests are very much tied to our own.
3) This commitment to rearmament doesn’t mean a blank check. We need to keep a tight grip on our military and security apparatus. Politicians need to focus our defence resources on defending democracy and self-determination. Parliamentary oversight and international law must remain sacrosanct. Russia has regard for neither.
4) Connected to the above, Ukraine and Gaza are twin struggles against imperialism, domination and tyranny. Marching against Western involvement in Israel’s genocide is coherent with marching for Western support for Ukraine. Anyone who suggests that opposition to Israel’s genocide is somehow anti-Ukrainian is at it. Israel is just like Russia, we cannot back one and condem the other.
5) The wealthy must pay more. In a scenario where we go to war with Russia, it will be a very different one than from 1939. Society is less deferential. The UK less united and poorer. The British identity is itself contested, with large and powerful separatist movements in three out of the four home countries. People need a reason to fight beyond warm words. We cannot cut or refuse to fund vital domestic services under the guise of rearmament. It will be young working and middle class people of this country that fight in the army, navy and airforce. We need to ensure they have a reason to sign-up beyond hollow feelings of patriotism and guilt tripping. The Prime Minister cut aid to fund defence, which aside from being a moral abdication, is a vital component of our soft power and will make the job of British diplomats convincing nations in the Global South to resist the overtures of Russia much harder.
None of this is an easy arguement but it has fallen to us to make it. I am not an SNP supporter but I am happy that I live in a country where the First Minister is capable of articulating much of what I’ve laid out above. This article feels like a cynical attempt to divide us and present a false choice between a return to the pre-2003 status-quo and surrender to Russia.
Don’t the SNP still want to scrap Trident?
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