A SNP grandee has called for the party to ditch its nuclear disarmament pledge.
Former Westminster leader Ian Blackford, in an article he wrote for The Times, said he wants a multilateral approach to disarmament.
This would mean weapons would be given up under agreements obliging other nuclear-armed states to do the same after peace is achieved in Ukraine, Blackford suggests.
This runs parallel to the party’s current stance, with First Minister John Swinney recently suggesting that a focus on nuclear weapons is an “inhibitor” to combating current military challenges due to the “resources they command”.
“There are other choices on defence expenditure to be made,” Swinney said.
The SNP officially state that they have "never and will never support the retention or renewal of Trident”, or nuclear submarines based on the Clyde, and they brand nuclear weapons “immoral, ineffective and expensive”.
Blackford still wants to see the removal of Trident from Scotland, however, but asks what the roadmap to achieving that target is.
He said that “when the facts change, careful consideration of our response is appropriate” and that “there must now be a concentration of minds on a multilateral approach to achieve nuclear de-escalation”.
Blackford (below) claimed US “disengagement” from Europe under president Donald Trump, alongside the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, raised “fundamental questions” over policy around nuclear weapons.
Blackford also backed efforts by Starmer to unite European leaders in supporting Ukraine and said that a Trump state visit to the UK offered a valuable opportunity to “pull the US back onside”.
“I do believe Trump wants peace but it has to be on terms that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty. A state visit will present an opportunity to do exactly this.”
