OCCASIONAL diplomatic humiliation around the maintenance of Britain’s so-called “special relationship” with the United States is a likelihood for every British prime minister.
Britain’s special relationship with the United States is built upon a very particular foundation: the Trident missile system that’s rented by the Royal Navy from the US Navy. The nuclear warheads are sometimes described as “British-built to American specifications”.
Not so for the Trident II D5 missiles, the delivery system that houses the warheads.
The missiles are built in the USA, stored in the USA and loaded on and off the British Vanguard submarines in the USA. The Tridents are periodically upgraded in the Kings Bay US navy yard in North Carolina and eventually returned to the owner, the US Navy, who decommission them.
That’s what France’s president Emmanuel Macron was hinting at when, in a speech a couple of weeks ago, he naughtily referred to his country’s naval equivalent as French “from beginning to end”.
This means that every time on every occasion a British negotiating team sits across from an American team, to defend “the British national interest”, the British team know the Yanks hold the negotiating ace card – the Trident lease. The implications of this devil’s bargain are now dawning on the British business establishment in the wake of Trump’s global tariffs programme.
At various times in the past, SNP MPs have questioned the cost of replacing the ageing Vanguard-class nuclear armed submarines.
Now would also be a great time. It’s time to shine light on the terms of the rental lease for the Trident missiles.
We know billions have already been spent on the so-called “independent deterrent”. We also know that billions more are earmarked for future costs.
Does the US Navy rent the missiles to the Royal Navy at a discount?
Or do the natural rules of a monopoly kick in, raising the rent to a premium? It’s only a matter of time before president Donald Trump turns his attention to that matter, if he has not already.
Meanwhile, Britain’s trade tariff negotiators are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The image of Great Britain as a nuclear power cannot be overestimated. The naval military reality, that Britain’s nuclear capability relies on another country’s weapon system, effectively compromises any British negotiators with the US. This dynamic of utter dependence is what the “special relationship” really means.
The damage is diplomatically and possibly commercially ruinous to the UK’s national interest. It also wreaks havoc on Britain’s national security. Moreover, ensuring it’s ignored or sidelined by a “form of words” in the Labour Government’s upcoming redraft of the current Strategic Defence Review would be funny if it were not so serious.
The reality is that rental of Trident cripples a coherent discourse around a future national security policy for the UK. Which brings me on to the strange case of a so-called SNP “official”, as reported by Politico Europe, that now’s the time for the SNP to become fans of Trident.
Even if I were a supporter of Trident, as some former members of the SNP’s Westminster team appear to be, trying to raise the banner for Trident at this time is as doomed as Prince Charlie raising the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan.
Britain, and a future independent Scotland, will have issues of national interest and national security, which are not of course quite the same thing.
However, disposing of Trident to avoid being a very junior partner in the future expeditionary adventures of the US would be a good starting point.
Global power projection for Britain is strategically delusional and, as the current occupant of the White House is illustrating in spades, very costly.
We can at this time only speculate. However, maybe Politico’s unnamed source or sources will develop a backbone and speak against a motion that has been tabled by the SNP Trade Union Group for debate at the SNP National Council in Perth in June.
The motion reads: “Scotland’s Security – In view of destabilising events in Europe and beyond, this Council reaffirms that SNP policy is: To ratify the United Nations Treaty On the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons when Scotland is able to do so as an independent nation; to support action to remove nuclear weapons from Scotland. These weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction do not protect us, but rather make us a target;
“To expose the truth about the supposed ‘British’ Trident nuclear weapons system. It is completely dependent on the US, which can control the system and cancel the lease of the missiles when the US president chooses; to develop security policies for Scotland which are relevant to our needs.”
Bill Ramsay is convener of the SNP Trade Union Group and executive member of Scottish CND
