HOSTING nuclear submarines in the Clyde isn’t a deterrent but makes Scotland a “target” amid escalating tension between Russia and the UK, campaigners have stressed.
The warning comes as Vladimir Putin has lowered the threshold for nuclear weapons on the 1000th day of the Ukraine war, a day after the US gave the war-torn nation permission to use its long-range weaponry to fire into Russia.
The Russian president signed a revised nuclear doctrine declaring that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.
Meanwhile, asked at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro whether the UK should prepare for nuclear war, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “This is irresponsible rhetoric coming from Russia and that is not going to deter our support for Ukraine.”
With the UK’s nuclear arsenal hosted at HM Naval Base Clyde – just miles from Scotland’s largest city – the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND) have now sounded the alarm.
“Nuclear weapons in Scotland – all they do is threaten mass death for all of us,” SCND chair Lynn Jamieson told The National.
“Both the people who are targeted and us with the targets on our back.”
While Jamieson stressed that there’s “no more reason for panic” than there has ever been despite the rhetoric, there is “always the potential” of their actual use unless they are abolished.
“This kind of bluff and counter-bluff, while Putin is actually being attacked by long-range missiles shows that deterrence does not work, it just makes us more at risk,” she said.
And Jamieson added that Scotland – particularly Glasgow and the central belt – is more at risk than the rest of the UK given the presence of the Trident.
“If there was a [Russian] strike on the submarine base or, indeed, if they launched even just one submarine's worth of missiles, it would be the end of all of us,” she said.
“The devastation would certainly wipe out the whole of the central belt of Scotland. Maybe not instantly, but one Trident missile from our UK submarine has got 5 independent bombs that would fan out and each of those bombs are 10 times the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.”
Jamieson went on: “You're talking about a vast area of immediate devastation, followed by incredible fallout.
“[And] it wouldn't just be Glasgow. There wouldn't be much of Scotland that wouldn't be touched.”
Jamieson insisted, however, that “deterrence” simply isn’t working.
“The way back from this is not more nuclear weapons, but actually to do something seriously towards nuclear disarmament,” she said.
Her comments come as the UK was one of just three countries to vote against creating a UN scientific panel on the effects of nuclear war on November 4.
The Foreign Office argued that the “devastating consequences” of such a conflict are already well known without the need for a new study.
“Even North Korea abstained,” Jamieson said – describing the move as “frankly ridiculous”.
“We need a government that is taking disarmament more seriously.”
