CHANGING the SNP’s policy on nuclear weapons would be a “panic measure” demonstrating the same lack of principles as the Tories or Labour, an MSP has warned.
Bill Kidd, who is also co-president of the global group Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, issued a warning to his party after its long-standing policy on nuclear weapons came under fire on multiple fronts – including from within.
As the fear of Russia rises in Europe, Labour have chosen nuclear weapons as an issue on which to attack the SNP. Just this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer took aim at the party’s stance on nuclear weapons in the Commons – followed by Labour MP Joani Reid and Scottish Secretary Ian Murray doing the same two days later.
Then, Ian Blackford, the SNP’s former Westminster leader, joined the calls for the SNP to change tack on nuclear weaponry – saying the party should support multilateral disarmament instead of unilateral disarmament.
The question being asked is simple: will the SNP stick with their support for the removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland on day one of independence?
Or, will they change tack and say nukes can stay on the Clyde indefinitely (which, in practice, is what waiting for multilateral disarmament means)?
For Kidd, who spoke to the Sunday National from a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the answer is clear.
“There may be increasing pressure from the UK, from the UK political parties – and in fact I expect that there will be – but that is another example of why the SNP should stand firmly as an anti-nuclear [party],” he said.
“We should actually be proud that other people are noticing our strength of support because we actually have got the majority of people in Scotland on our side.
On pressure to change the SNP’s nuclear position, he added: “I actually think that it would – quite rightly in my opinion – give people the idea that we were no better than the other parties, than Labour or the Tories, in terms of, ‘oh, here's an opportunity to do one thing rather than something we have been firmly and strongly in favour of’.”
Bill Ramsay, the convener of the SNP trade union group who sits on the party’s ruling national executive committee, said he could not see anything to be gained from a change in policy.
“I get the concerns of the tragic situation the Ukrainians are in, however, a European and or a US nuke does not improve their situation one whit,” he said.
“Even from the perspective of the cynical, given the levels of support for independence, absent fluctuations in party popularity, there is nothing, absolutely nothing to be gained from trying to grab hold of a nuclear totem … nothing to be gained by changing party policy.”
Public opinion is clear on one thing: the majority of people in the UK – 66% according to a YouGov survey from May 2024 – believe that no country in the world should have nuclear weapons.
That YouGov survey from May 2024 found that 65% of people support complete multilateral disarmament – where all of the world’s nine nuclear states dispose of their weapons together.
Just 11% of UK voters support the Westminster government ending its nuclear weapons programme unilaterally – a move which would leave the world with eight nuclear-armed states.
A separate YouGov poll, from January 2025, similarly found that just 13% of people support the UK giving up nuclear weapons when the current Trident system reaches the end of its life – down from a high of around one-quarter (24-23%) in late 2020 and 2021.
But polling shows that support for nuclear disarmament is generally higher among SNP and Yes voters – for many of whom the Trident missiles at Faslane are something of a totemic issue.
In March 2024, there was a strongly negative reaction within the party to External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson declining to reiterate the SNP’s long-standing support for the TPNW. Soon after the backlash, the Scottish Government reaffirmed its position.
Dr Rhys Crilley, an expert on nuclear weapons with the University of Glasgow, said that studies had found support for abolishing nuclear weapons was widespread internationally.
“Our research at the University of Glasgow also shows that a majority of UN member states support nuclear disarmament measures such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and believe that action is urgently needed.”
Dr Crilley said that the SNP’s current policy therefore “not only makes rational sense, but it is a position that has the support of a large proportion of the Scottish electorate as well as the wider world beyond Scotland’s borders”.
The University of Glasgow academic said that crises in Israel and Palestine, Russia and Ukraine, and the “unpredictability and chaos of the second Trump administration”, showed why the route taken must be towards nuclear disarmament – rather than the escalation of rhetoric being seen in the UK and internationally.
“Experts agree that the risk of nuclear war is now higher than it has been since the height of the Cold War,” he said.
“And scientific studies show that even a ‘small’ nuclear war involving 100 warheads would directly kill 27 million people, and a further 2 billion would die from starvation within two years as the effects of nuclear winter set in.
“Nuclear disarmament presents a clear way for the world to reduce the risks of an extinction-level event.”
