“When the facts change, careful consideration of our response is appropriate.” With those ostensibly gentle words, Ian Blackford, the former Westminster leader of the SNP, launched, if not a nuke, then a well-timed grenade into the heart of his party.
It has long been an article of faith among Nats that they are committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. An independent Scotland would have no nukes – Trident would be banished from the Clyde. The UK should give them up anyway. There is no place for these destructive weapons in any decent world.
It’s perfectly reasonable to have a baleful view of nukes – who doesn’t? But it’s also important to understand that we don’t live in a decent world, and in fact occupy a planet that is becoming more indecent and threatening by the day.
This is the realisation that appears to have visited Blackford. In a hostile international climate, the main threats are a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China, along with a nuclear-hungry Iran; a nuclear-armed US, once our protector, gives every indication that it is withdrawing its security guarantee from Europe; this leaves nuclear armed-France and the nuclear-armed UK to carry the heaviest part of the continent’s defence burden and to provide the ultimate deterrent.
As Blackford wrote in Thursday’s Times: “US disengagement from Europe leads to fundamental questions of us facing a Russian aggressor with a nuclear capability. There must now be a concentration of minds on a multilateral approach to achieve nuclear de-escalation.”
He is right about the need for the SNP to rethink its stance on unilateralism. The party has rarely been sure-footed on foreign and defence policy – Alex Salmond infamously described Nato airstrikes against Serbia as “unpardonable folly”. Its “bairns not bombs” slogan is juvenile and reductive. But today, having been in government at Holyrood for the best part of two decades, it should surely have a greater understanding of the practicalities and compromises involved in running countries and dealing with others who are not going to do what you would like, however nicely you ask.
If the preference for unilateralism was naïve during the Cold War, it is every bit as naïve today, with a Second Cold War apparently upon us. This is why Blackford’s intervention matters. He has blown up a shibboleth, and will no doubt pay an internal price – there is considerable anger at his timing. But if he has started a debate within the higher ranks of the SNP, then that is a good thing for Scotland. The global threat is one that faces us all, and that could potentially become existential. This is no time for performative politics.
So far, the Nats have shown their customary wobbliness. Following the grotesque Oval Office ambush of Volodymr Zelensky by Donald Trump and JD Vance, John Swinney initially insisted the proposed state visit for the president be withdrawn. This might sound reasonable coming from the mouth of an angry activist, but not from a First Minister charged with considering longer-term goals and security. Indeed, Swinney quickly changed his tune, arguing that the visit should remain a “possibility” if it firms up American support for Kyiv. Better.
It’s harder to be kind to Stephen Flynn, Blackford’s successor as Westminster leader. Flynn, who never passes a door marked “cheap opportunity” without stepping through it, tweeted that “Starmer had better get back up off his knees and revoke that offer of a state visit.” This didn’t just anger the PM, who described Flynn in the Commons as a “keyboard warrior”, but also those in his own party who see the need for the UK to present a united front on the Ukraine issue. Flynn is truly Salmond’s child, without the occasional charm or depth of thought.
The UK government is genuinely furious with the Nats for sowing division at such a key moment. One senior minister told me the SNP’s statements were “incoherent and not credible”. Sources say that there have been few, if any, visits by Nationalist ministers to defence companies located in Scotland during their long spell in government – the association is simply too uncomfortable for a party with a strong pacifist streak and that has often set its face against what it views as Western imperialism. The anti-colonial stream runs strong in the independence movement.
In a speech on Friday morning for Reform Scotland – the think tank of which I am director – Ian Murray, the Scottish Secretary will talk about the necessity of finding routes in Scotland to increase economic growth. This includes the use of nuclear power to boost the energy industry, achieve Net Zero and enhance energy security – the SNP oppose nuclear power as well as weapons. And it will mean investing in Scotland’s defence sector, however uncomfortably that sits with some.
Indeed, there are senior figures in the nationalist movement who believe the SNP should seize the moment, too. They point out that the party hasn’t had a serious debate about its defence policy since 2012 when it backed membership of Nato for an independent Scotland. That was a very different world. “We need a conversation on all this, either at conference later this year or after the Holyrood election,” said one source.
Insiders are pushing for Swinney to go to Brussels and make a speech where he promises Scotland will be a “committed partner of a coalition of the willing”. The source added: “We need to get the language right. He should say that the Scottish government will support rearmament, support the Scottish defence sector, put money into R&D in the area of high-end drones and AI that has military as well as civilian applications. The Scottish National Investment Bank should be allowed to invest in defence, rather than seeing it as unethical.”
This all sounds sensible to me, but it would be something of a tightrope walk for an SNP First Minister. Long-time party members and activists don’t pay their subs to be part of what they see as a UK or western war machine – there are still many who are more comfortable with the Sturgeon-Green approach to politics.
But as Blackford said, when the facts change… now do the SNP’s leaders have it in them to change course?
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