Good evening! This week's edition of the In Common newsletter comes from Isobel Lindsay, Common Weal board member and vice convener of Scottish CND.
Keir Starmer is a puppet on Trump's string and since the British establishment has hidden behind a phoney "global power" posture for so long, it is in a state of complete disorientation. This is of particular interest for Scotland and presents us with an opportunity if we have the vision to pursue it.
The constant claim that there is an independent British nuclear "deterrent" has been a fantasy for decades. France does have an independent nuclear system but the UK does not. It is totally dependent on the US and has been since Harold Macmillan had to go cap in hand to President Eisenhower to beg the US to provide a delivery system since the British programme had ended in failure. The US military were reluctant to agree to this but eventually a deal was done at a cost.
Trump would have loved this. The cost was that they would be given the Holy Loch as a European base for their Polaris fleet. Macmillan tried to sell them Loch Linhe instead since a small number of Highlanders would put up less resistance than bolshy Glaswegians who might make a fuss about a major nuclear base on their doorstep. But the American navy wanted plenty of city entertainment to be close at hand for their submariners and Prestwick Airport was also a bonus.
So the British state were given the Polaris system for their Faslane base and later a major extension at Faslane/Coulport was built for Trident. But it is the US which manufactures the delivery system and it is to the US that the missiles return for servicing – all done in the same factory as the those going onto US subs. The UK manufactures the nuclear warheads to a US design. It builds the submarines to a US design. But warheads and subs have little credibility without a delivery system.
When Starmer goes to the Oval Office, Trump will be sitting there knowing that he holds all the cards and the British Prime Minister has not much to bargain with except a state banquet and bed and breakfast at Balmoral. Trump only has to say that he has decided to take the sixteen Trident missiles back into the US fleet and even if he doesn't do it this week, he can do it next week or next year or the year after.
Independence would give us the real opportunity to rethink what are the best security policies for Scotland. The UK has been trapped in both an imperial hangover and in the role of America's client state. It has continued to pursue an expeditionary warfare role with global reach when it has neither the resources or often the legitimacy to do so. If only public debates could take place around the objectives of security rather than the narrow concept of defence.
To be fair, British governments do conduct five-yearly Security, Defence and Foreign Policy reviews. The problem is that this approach tends to be for insiders rather than informing the debates that the wider public sees. That suits the interests of the military-industrial complex and of the shallow political policy debates among the parties.
We have serious vulnerabilities but it's not from Russian or Chinese invasions. It has taken Russia three years and substantial material and human resources to make modest advances into a neighbour on its doorstep. The Chinese are interested in economic advancement and its territorial interest is Taiwan, around which there is a lot of history. But we and most other developed states are very vulnerable because we have become extremely dependent on cyber systems for almost all of our core social functions. I was shocked and so are most others when shown the map of under-sea cables around Scotland's coast on which we are so dependent.
A big priority for Scotland is coastal defence and in that we are weak. We have major energy resources, fishing, transport, cyber connectivity. We have a long coastline vulnerable to the drug trade and other organised crime. Good coastal defence is important for our security. But a major nuclear base makes us insecure. It makes us a top target.
It would be good news if Trump did decide to stop leasing Trident to the UK. But we can be pretty sure that if that threat was made, he would get whatever he wants from Starmer. After all Starmer has already degraded himself and the Labour Party before he gets to Washington. To transfer funds from helping the poorest in the world in order to indulge the military-industrial complex in order to show how macho you are sends a clear message. That will please the White House because Trump knows it is being done as a tribute to him.
