29/10/2012 Newsnight Scotland

not mean that if they came to a legal challenge they would

On Newsnight Scotland tonight: a nuclear warning from a Unionist

politician. Get rid of Trident and you will lose jobs and influence,

says the Defence Secretary. Pure unbridled politics says one SNP

politician. Of course cities. But what are they going to do about it?

-- of course it is. The independence debate went

nuclear today. The Defence Secretary came north and promised

to spend �350 million to design a replacement for Trident. But, hang

on, said Nick Clegg, we have not made up our minds on that yet. The

SNP made up its mind a long time ago. It is no to any nuclear

weapons even if we become members of NATO.

Philip Hammond comes to the Clyde estuary to make an announcement

that even his own coalition colleagues say is not new. He

deployed familiar arguments for retaining Trident. Scottish jobs

and international security. Today we are announcing the next �350

million commitment to the development of the successor

submarine, design and development phase. Insuring the project

continues to make progress so that we will be able to make the main

investment decision in 2016. SNP think that is a waste of money.

I believe that the majority in Scotland do not want weapons of

mass destruction in Scotland. We would rather spend the vast sums of

money used to maintain the current Trident and if Philip Hammond gets

his way would be used to institute a new generation of nuclear

weapons... That would be far better used on schools and doctors. That

is what I want to see public money spent on.

Philip Hammond will never convince the nationalists. But of course

that is not why he was here. Opposition to nuclear weapons has

been a sacred tenant of SNP policy since the first submarine sailed up

the Clyde. And for decades, this article of faith informed their

policy on NATO. But then 10 days ago the SNP controversially voted

for a U-turn on membership of the need to airlines. Informed in part

by polling evidence -- nuclear alliance. When asked 75% said they

would wish an independent Scotland to remain... You can do, you can do.

When it comes to getting rid of Trident, the SNP are convinced

their existing policy chimes with Scottish public opinion. A recent

poll commissioned by the party showed 46% of people in Scotland

want the Scottish Parliament to have more powers to bring about the

removal of tridents from Scottish waters. 35% against, 19% do not

know. It is a pleasure and an honour to give my first speech in

contribution to what I believe will be a historic day, when we hear the

first nail being hammered in the coffin of the British Government's

programme of weapons for mass destruction. In the early days of

the SNP government, MS Ps voted in vain to give the Scottish

Parliament the powers to remove Trident -- MSPs. I think it is easy

to exaggerate the degree to which public opinion in Scotland is

necessarily as anti- nuclear weapons as the SNP often seem to

presume. There are a couple of poll readings not that long ago which

suggest opinion is evenly divided about Trident nuclear weapons

systems being replaced. Slightly more people against than in favour

but no clear direction one way or the other. International politics.

Letter suppose a new Assembly Government in a newly independent

Scotland orders the removal of nuclear weapons -- let us suppose.

Where would it leave Scotland? discussion over Trident will be one

of the major issues, because it is of fundamental importance to the

rest of the UK. It is a political weapon guaranteeing the UK's

presence at the top seat of international relations. My

personal view is that there will be long negotiations. Washington will

have an awful lot to say about this and bring huge diplomatic pressure

to bear on the independent government of Scotland to ensure

that the UK does not disarm unilaterally. And what would be the

timeline for this? My personal view is that Trident will remain in

Scottish waters if we become independent and tell the Trident

system becomes obsolete and that could be many decades. A senior

person within the SNP who was well qualified to talk about these

things pointed at to me recently that the SNP has never put a time

frame on withdrawal of weapons from the Clyde estuary. Philip Hammond

says Trinant will be replaced and located on the Clyde. -- Trident.

The SNP says it will not. In other words, politics not military

strategy will ultimately decide whether Trident will be replaced

and whether nuclear weapons will be removed from the Clyde estuary.

I am joined now from Edinburgh by Bill Kidd, the SNP MSP and long-

term campaigner against Trident. Thank you for joining us. The

voters who would want an independent Scotland to have a

stronger defence, what can you say to persuade them that should bar

happen? I do not really know exactly what the premise is -- that

should not happen. The defence in Scotland is enhanced by

conventional defence. Not by Trident. Trident is an irrelevance

when it comes to defence. It is not a weapon of Defence. It is a

political toy. It is an excuse for Britain to situ the top table in

international relations. And achieve absolutely nothing -- to

sit at the top table. It has been described as the ultimate deterrent.

No one wants to use it in first strike capability but it is there

as a last resort. 911 in America proved the last resort is useless.

-- 9/11. But could not be defended against by using nuclear weapons.

That is the way the world is now. We are not in a cold war any more.

We should be getting a peace dividend which we have not had. Now

we are looking for an independence dividend which will be the removal

of Trident and saving the vast waste of money that is planned by

Westminster. He mentioned there 9/11. That was an attack by a rope

terrorist group. What about rogue states? The likes of North Korea or

Iran who are trying to develop them. Or states who already have nuclear-

weapons who we cannot necessarily trust. Countries like Russia. Are

you happy to do some in the face of that sort of presence? As far as I

know, Russia is a trading partner of the United Kingdom and I do not

want to call them a rogue state. I do not want to call China a rogue

state in the way Cameron did just after coming back from there. This

attitude is most dangerous. Unless we get rid of nuclear weapons and

it is not going to happen tomorrow but unless we get rid of them from

the world we will always be in danger of there being some kind of

catastrophe or even potentially a war which involves nuclear weapons.

We need to negotiate these things on the world scale. It seems to me

the United Kingdom has no intention of doing so even though they are a

signatory of the Non-Proliferation to three -- treaty. The SNP have

joined NATO. But is a first strike nuclear alliance. You are going in

the wrong direction. We have already stated that NATO is only an

option should we remove the nuclear weapons. We will not be bullied

into keeping nuclear weapons. an option? I beg your pardon.

said NATO is only an option. No, I said... I meant to say that keeping

nuclear weapons would not be an option and their fault if we were a

member of NATO, as we are i the moment and continue to be -- and

therefore if we were a member of NATO we would not continue to have

nuclear weapons. That was stated at the conference last week. We would

be members of NATO but not as a nuclear member. If you put a ban on

nuclear weapons in Scotland's constitution as you wish to do, it

would be a door, wouldn't it? Then there will be a question about

whether NATO members, ships from other countries can bring their

nuclear weapons into Scottish waters -- it would be a law. That

would be a decision made by the government following independence.

My opinion is that nuclear weapons being brought in to a country would

breach of that law. It depends how the law was phrased of course. I

would prefer it to be phrase that once we get rid of nuclear weapons,

we would not invite them into a visit or settle here as was

mentioned in your package. would you police that? Would that

involve going on board some of the ships and checking them out?

would involve a treaty and... It is well known which ships carry

nuclear weapons. It is not boarding and searching military ships. But

is not what would happen. We would know, everyone would know whether a

ship was carrying nuclear weapons. It is not a secret that these

things are carried around the seas. We would know this was being

brought into one of our ports. There is a lot of uncertainty about

this, uncertainty on what will happen to these weapons, the

timescale for the removal from Scotland, membership of NATO, terms

of membership, how we react with other countries -- interact. A lot

of uncertainties and a lot of voters might be asking, I am not

sure about this. There is only one certainty and that is that if we

stay in the United Kingdom we will keep these weapons stationed in

Scotland for 40, 50, 60 more years. Uncertainty is something which we

are trying to iron out as much as we possibly can. What we have

stated is that nuclear weapons will go from Scotland. On what

timescale? Months? It potentially could be a number of months. I

would reckon that internationally it has been suggested it could be

some were just over the two-year mark. Someone said it might be

decades. Stewart Crawford is saying it from a political point of view.

We must leave it there. Thank you very much. Bill Kidd, SNP MSP.

Today the focus was on the SNP's policy. Last week there were claims

Scotland would not get automatic membership of the European Union.

On both issues unionist parties have talked up what they claim is

the uncertainty of the tour. Will uncertainty itself be a deciding

factor in the referendum -- of it all? I am joined now from London by

Joe Twynam, Director of Social and Political Research at the YouGov

polling agency. And also by Professor Chris Carman of

Strathclyde University. Thank you both very much indeed for joining

us. To what extent are all of these issues of uncertainty starting to

have an impact on the debates surrounding independence? People

who are uncertain are the ones who are the big question mark, of

Bisley. From these sorts of polls Bisley. From these sorts of polls

that Joe has run and others... Obviously. The group in the middle

who are uncertain where they are going to go... We are going to

watch and monitor because we do not know exactly what points will

influence them. That is an issue, isn't it, that there are many

undecided voters in all of this? It is an uncertain world. Will people

vote for independence without definitive answers on some of these

big policy areas? I think we need to look at things in context. There

is a lot of uncertainty surrounding many aspects. But a lot of these

issues really are not the most important to the average voter and

indeed the 50% of people less engage. They are not really

interested in the intricacies of Trident or EU membership. Instead

what they are interested in is the economy and we see from our polling

that people think generally that Scotland would be worse off if it

became independent. That is by a ratio of 2 1/2 to 1. They are also

interested in whether they can trust an independent Scotland and

whether it can be effective. These are important. Uncertainty plays

into that and makes it difficult to unseat the status quo. Looking at a

historical, -- historical context, generally speaking in developed

democracies, they do not succeed because they are unable to overcome

Is it enough to chip away at it? is not enough. I agree with what

Joe said, it is the idea of trust, can we trust on them to govern

itself? The SNP has done a good job of building up that narrative. Look

at what we can do, we can deliver policy. Using the Scottish Election

Study data, we can mud Bhagat Botha's from 2007, and compare them

with voters from 2011. We know in 2007, people were voting for

independence ideas. Looking at 2011, that relationship clubs around. If

you thought the SNP was competent, you are more likely to think that

independence is a good idea. that the key for the SNP, to

respond to what is strong pressure from the Unionist parties to try

and re-establish that narrative of trust? Absolutely. I would not try

and none play the uncertainty game, if I wasn't -- if I was an SNP

strategist. There is no answer to every single thing are what you

would do. You have to trust us, that is what I have to say. The

they don't have all the answers to all the little details. Instead,

the voter has to trust them. If they can get that message across,

it will be powerful. The difficulty that they have, they need to get it

across to a large number of people. At the moment, the ratio of those

wanting to stay part of the union is about 2-1. With that in mind,

how far ahead the SNP have to get in order to stand a chance of

winning this referendum? They have to stake a big claim over the

course of the next year. Descartes began in the mid-thirties, where

they are the moment. -- they cannot be down. Absolutely. They have to

prove that people can trust them. They have to move beyond, look at

us, we can do this. We can have the rubbish collected on time. They

have to move on to be bigger narrative. Right now, the

independence debate dominates everything, without other policy

areas, bread-and-butter issues, it is difficult to break that

narrative? It is. Particularly when you're struggling to recover from

economic crisis. He makes it very difficult for them to build a case.

That point, the one you made about the economy. The SNP would like to

Mel some of this down, but it is proving hard to do it on EU

membership, keeping the pound, keeping the euro. How do they get

around that? That seems to be a fundamental issue. It plays into

the uncertainty. What they need to do is focus less on the details,

such as the euro, or interest rates, or funding on taxation, and instead,

focus on these broader ideas. To say, we are competent, we are

effective. If they are able to win over an economic competence

argument, the mind the shy ones matter -- the small matters won't

matter. If you asked the people of Scotland, indeed the whole of Great

Britain, what the most important issues are at the moment, based say

it is the economy. That is chosen by 80% of people. -- they say it is

the economy. It is not the best of times to hold a referendum. It is

the most difficult of times. That is an important point. It is a long

haul, a week is a long time in politics, and two years is a really

long time. The SNP have a long way to go, and a lot to do. Alex

Salmond is famous for his intellect, and the shrewdness as a political

operator. He may be able to make a change in fortunes. They looked

unlikely at the moment. On that basis, are there some of the SNP

while wondering whether now is not the right time to be holding a

referendum? I am sure they are being told, stay calm, keep your

powder dry. It is OK, two years, one week is a long time, two years

is a very long time. There is a lot of time to make this case. They

have to figure out a strategy for going ahead. We must leave it there.

A look at the papers. Obama sends in troops. Daily Telegraph, child

benefit cuts may be illegal. The Times, states of emergency.

That's all from me. If you want to see the programme again it's on the