“Humza Yousaf vows to rid independent Scotland of nuclear weapons
First Minister wants to enshrine a nuclear-free Scotland in a post-independence constitution
The removal of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil will be enshrined in a post-independence constitution, Humza Yousaf, the first minister, has said.
The plan is contained in the SNP’s latest blueprint to help the country meet future challenges in the event that the union is dismantled.
The nuclear pledge revives a call made almost a decade ago by Mr Yousaf’s predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, who questioned why Scottish taxpayers were funding “one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons in Europe on our doorsteps”.
“Our proposals would provide an opportunity for people in Scotland to shape the newly independent country and create a permanent, modern, written constitution to describe the type of country Scotland would be and how it would be governed,” Mr Yousaf said.
“Successive UK governments have taken Scotland in the wrong direction and with independence we would radically shift where power lies and put it back in the hands of the people who live in Scotland.
“What we will not see under these proposals, are nuclear weapons on the Clyde. This proposed constitution would ban nuclear weapons from an Independent Scotland.”
The drafting of a new constitution is outlined in a new strategy paper, Building a New Scotland.
Previous papers have set out evidence showing independent countries comparable to Scotland are wealthier and fairer than the UK; how Scottish democracy can be renewed with independence; and the macroeconomic framework, including currency arrangements, for an independent Scotland.
Mr Yousaf said the latest paper would enable people in Scotland to shape the new country and “take on the challenges of the future”.
The blueprint includes recognition of the NHS in Scotland, giving the right to access a system of health care, available free at the point of need; stronger protections for human rights and equality, including upholding and fulfilling the right to an adequate standard of living as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and the right for workers to take industrial action.
In 2014, Ms Sturgeon, who at the time was deputy first minister, said that embedding a legal obligation to work for nuclear disarmament in a Scottish constitution would place a duty on Holyrood to strive for the removal of submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defence reversed a 10-year-old disarmament plan by announcing the “ceiling” on the UK’s nuclear weapons stockpile would increase from 225 to 260 because of “technological and doctrinal threats”.
The same year, Nukewatch, which monitors the transport of nuclear weapons, claimed that the UK government had quietly boosted the number of Trident nuclear warheads stored on the Clyde in the previous five years. It estimated that 37 new warheads were delivered from England to Scotland between 2015 and 2020. Nine were added in 2019 and 13 in 2020.”
Source: Telegraph
Credit: Mark Macaskill
No one that lives near helensburgh wanted have a job anyway.
Good work yousaf.
Fucking idiot. No nuke = Russia fucks you over. Oh don’t think England will help you after independence either.
An easy thing for him to say because the UK’s nuclear deterrent will cover Scotland regardless, the same way Ireland spends a hilariously low amount on defence because they know we can never allow a foreign force to invade them. They can reap all the benefits while paying nothing toward it and claiming the moral high ground.
However I’m not sure NATO will be best pleased that Scotland is creating a headache and potential capability lapse for one of its key defences. Is Scotland’s policy still to join the alliance? Because that’s not the best foot to get off on.
Watch him completely 180 if the UK gov says they’re considering moving shipbuilding away from Scotland because of this to protect the UK’s future security, and start screaming about “Westminster stealing investment and jobs from us”.
As long as he is leader and given the low calibre of the SNP front bench, this will be an academic question. There won’t be an independent Scotland.
Unfortunately Pandora’s Box has been opened the moment the US made them. We can’t get rid of them now. You would need every country in the world to agree not to build them, and those who already have them would have to get rid of them. But this is an impossibility because the level of trust & transparency required would have to be total & universal across all governments, which just isn’t going to happen. Also, once a blueprint is out there & it’s existence is in our collective memory, you can’t erase it, it will evolve.
Easy to say shit when you know it’s never going to happen
Does he want to stay in NATO? Just wondering if he wants the protection from nukes, without nukes? But that would be a bit hypocritical right?
So he wants to scrap defence spending, and energy sector spending, and lose the subsidising tax from Westminster.
I’d like to see this balanced budget and employment plan.
Independence is a bad idea, just look at our breakaway from the EU… and the UK is even more intertwined
Like its going to make a difference if it came to nuclear war.
This country has 3 choices rare, medium or well done.
Westminster would keep up at the negotiating table for as long as it took for SNP to fold. Delusional lol
I don’t think the international community would lead an independent Scotland to have nuclear weapons on its territory anyway
LOLLLLLLLLL. Scotland won’t be going independent anytime soon. After that last court decision, that ship sailed. Thank years of tactical blunders by the SNP for that. Now if Scotland tries to hold a referendum and leave, its status will be that of Transinistria, Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, and Crimea. Then Scotland will have no choice but to start courting countries that are pariah states.
Scotland wouldn’t have nukes after independence, they’d go back to their owner. As if the UK would host it’s CASD in a foreign country.
So if they ever get independance we can just invade like the good ole days.
Scotland independence? He thinks he’s Mel Gibson’s William Wallace Braveheart?
One way street to becoming a vassal state of the UK.
I could see a scenario where Faslane remains sovereign territory rather like in Cyprus with Akrotiri
These comments read like a 13 year olds understanding of geopolitics. Russia invading a “nuke-less” Scotland? What?
England should focus on bringing every piece of military equipment they paid for back to England.
Whatever Scotland owns it keeps, whatever they own they keep.
Well they were never Scotland’s in the first place. They’re owned by the UK and still would be if Scotland became independent
There is no way the UK is going to leave their nuclear weapons in Scotland if they vote to leave. What an idiotically ignorant thing to say.
Not a bad policy but you could at least sell them to Iran or something, try and make a little profit from doing so at least.
Was worried the title said nuclear power plants.
Kind of a pointless thing to do unless they can control funding of them.
A few hundred million a year actually helping Scottish people and services instead of keeping a nuke warm would be a win.
If Scotland really wanted independence, the best thing they could do would be to give the English a vote. It would be a landslide
Scexit would be the economic equivalent of a bullet through the head
Saying this while there is currently a war going on because Russia decided to straight up invade someone sounds like a vote loser.
Wonder when SNP supporters will realise they are the same as delusional brexiters
Yeah, they’d do a few things that are coincidentally also Russian geopolitical aims.
Humza Yousaf might want to take a look at Ukraine and reconsider.
I see the SNP have returned to their safe standby of pointless grandstanding.
The problem I have with the independence argument is its usually around the argument of Brexit being a bad idea, yet its clearly obvious that Scotland is even more intertwined with the UK than the UK was with the EU.
To suggest that Brexit is or was always going to be bad, is to also suggest that Scottish independence is bad. I’m just curious which independent voters actually take this argument and think they can reasonably argue otherwise.
He might as well claim to want to rid unicorns of horns in an iScotland, or get everyone a night in the sack with Nicole Kidman. There’s never going to be an independent Scotland so he can promise whatever he likes.
It’s something that’s easy to say but makes absolutely no sense even if you think about it for only 5 seconds.
35 comments
Article:
“Humza Yousaf vows to rid independent Scotland of nuclear weapons
First Minister wants to enshrine a nuclear-free Scotland in a post-independence constitution
The removal of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil will be enshrined in a post-independence constitution, Humza Yousaf, the first minister, has said.
The plan is contained in the SNP’s latest blueprint to help the country meet future challenges in the event that the union is dismantled.
The nuclear pledge revives a call made almost a decade ago by Mr Yousaf’s predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, who questioned why Scottish taxpayers were funding “one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons in Europe on our doorsteps”.
“Our proposals would provide an opportunity for people in Scotland to shape the newly independent country and create a permanent, modern, written constitution to describe the type of country Scotland would be and how it would be governed,” Mr Yousaf said.
“Successive UK governments have taken Scotland in the wrong direction and with independence we would radically shift where power lies and put it back in the hands of the people who live in Scotland.
“What we will not see under these proposals, are nuclear weapons on the Clyde. This proposed constitution would ban nuclear weapons from an Independent Scotland.”
The drafting of a new constitution is outlined in a new strategy paper, Building a New Scotland.
Previous papers have set out evidence showing independent countries comparable to Scotland are wealthier and fairer than the UK; how Scottish democracy can be renewed with independence; and the macroeconomic framework, including currency arrangements, for an independent Scotland.
Mr Yousaf said the latest paper would enable people in Scotland to shape the new country and “take on the challenges of the future”.
The blueprint includes recognition of the NHS in Scotland, giving the right to access a system of health care, available free at the point of need; stronger protections for human rights and equality, including upholding and fulfilling the right to an adequate standard of living as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and the right for workers to take industrial action.
In 2014, Ms Sturgeon, who at the time was deputy first minister, said that embedding a legal obligation to work for nuclear disarmament in a Scottish constitution would place a duty on Holyrood to strive for the removal of submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defence reversed a 10-year-old disarmament plan by announcing the “ceiling” on the UK’s nuclear weapons stockpile would increase from 225 to 260 because of “technological and doctrinal threats”.
The same year, Nukewatch, which monitors the transport of nuclear weapons, claimed that the UK government had quietly boosted the number of Trident nuclear warheads stored on the Clyde in the previous five years. It estimated that 37 new warheads were delivered from England to Scotland between 2015 and 2020. Nine were added in 2019 and 13 in 2020.”
Source: Telegraph
Credit: Mark Macaskill
No one that lives near helensburgh wanted have a job anyway.
Good work yousaf.
Fucking idiot. No nuke = Russia fucks you over. Oh don’t think England will help you after independence either.
An easy thing for him to say because the UK’s nuclear deterrent will cover Scotland regardless, the same way Ireland spends a hilariously low amount on defence because they know we can never allow a foreign force to invade them. They can reap all the benefits while paying nothing toward it and claiming the moral high ground.
However I’m not sure NATO will be best pleased that Scotland is creating a headache and potential capability lapse for one of its key defences. Is Scotland’s policy still to join the alliance? Because that’s not the best foot to get off on.
Watch him completely 180 if the UK gov says they’re considering moving shipbuilding away from Scotland because of this to protect the UK’s future security, and start screaming about “Westminster stealing investment and jobs from us”.
As long as he is leader and given the low calibre of the SNP front bench, this will be an academic question. There won’t be an independent Scotland.
Unfortunately Pandora’s Box has been opened the moment the US made them. We can’t get rid of them now. You would need every country in the world to agree not to build them, and those who already have them would have to get rid of them. But this is an impossibility because the level of trust & transparency required would have to be total & universal across all governments, which just isn’t going to happen. Also, once a blueprint is out there & it’s existence is in our collective memory, you can’t erase it, it will evolve.
Easy to say shit when you know it’s never going to happen
Does he want to stay in NATO? Just wondering if he wants the protection from nukes, without nukes? But that would be a bit hypocritical right?
So he wants to scrap defence spending, and energy sector spending, and lose the subsidising tax from Westminster.
I’d like to see this balanced budget and employment plan.
Independence is a bad idea, just look at our breakaway from the EU… and the UK is even more intertwined
Like its going to make a difference if it came to nuclear war.
This country has 3 choices rare, medium or well done.
Westminster would keep up at the negotiating table for as long as it took for SNP to fold. Delusional lol
I don’t think the international community would lead an independent Scotland to have nuclear weapons on its territory anyway
LOLLLLLLLLL. Scotland won’t be going independent anytime soon. After that last court decision, that ship sailed. Thank years of tactical blunders by the SNP for that. Now if Scotland tries to hold a referendum and leave, its status will be that of Transinistria, Donetsk People’s Republic, Luhansk People’s Republic, and Crimea. Then Scotland will have no choice but to start courting countries that are pariah states.
Scotland wouldn’t have nukes after independence, they’d go back to their owner. As if the UK would host it’s CASD in a foreign country.
So if they ever get independance we can just invade like the good ole days.
Scotland independence? He thinks he’s Mel Gibson’s William Wallace Braveheart?
One way street to becoming a vassal state of the UK.
I could see a scenario where Faslane remains sovereign territory rather like in Cyprus with Akrotiri
These comments read like a 13 year olds understanding of geopolitics. Russia invading a “nuke-less” Scotland? What?
England should focus on bringing every piece of military equipment they paid for back to England.
Whatever Scotland owns it keeps, whatever they own they keep.
Well they were never Scotland’s in the first place. They’re owned by the UK and still would be if Scotland became independent
There is no way the UK is going to leave their nuclear weapons in Scotland if they vote to leave. What an idiotically ignorant thing to say.
Not a bad policy but you could at least sell them to Iran or something, try and make a little profit from doing so at least.
Was worried the title said nuclear power plants.
Kind of a pointless thing to do unless they can control funding of them.
A few hundred million a year actually helping Scottish people and services instead of keeping a nuke warm would be a win.
If Scotland really wanted independence, the best thing they could do would be to give the English a vote. It would be a landslide
Scexit would be the economic equivalent of a bullet through the head
Saying this while there is currently a war going on because Russia decided to straight up invade someone sounds like a vote loser.
Wonder when SNP supporters will realise they are the same as delusional brexiters
Yeah, they’d do a few things that are coincidentally also Russian geopolitical aims.
Humza Yousaf might want to take a look at Ukraine and reconsider.
I see the SNP have returned to their safe standby of pointless grandstanding.
The problem I have with the independence argument is its usually around the argument of Brexit being a bad idea, yet its clearly obvious that Scotland is even more intertwined with the UK than the UK was with the EU.
To suggest that Brexit is or was always going to be bad, is to also suggest that Scottish independence is bad. I’m just curious which independent voters actually take this argument and think they can reasonably argue otherwise.
He might as well claim to want to rid unicorns of horns in an iScotland, or get everyone a night in the sack with Nicole Kidman. There’s never going to be an independent Scotland so he can promise whatever he likes.
It’s something that’s easy to say but makes absolutely no sense even if you think about it for only 5 seconds.