15/04/2014 Newsnight Scotland

ahead to the long-term, how we will get to a high skilled economy that

will have sustained growth shared all over the country.

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, the Defence Secretary was in town today

to warn about the perils of independence.

We'll ask whether this is scaremongering and discuss if

daytripping UK ministers are really going to bolster the pro-union

campaign. Good evening. Philip Hammond paid a

visit to defence workers in Glasgow today to warn them that their jobs

would be under threat if Scotland became independent. It wasn't a

message that was necessarily warmly received by the staff at the Talis

factory. And the SNP were quick to say that the Defence Secretary was

spreading myths and misinformation. Emma Ailes reports.

Site focused on the latest front on the battle over Scotland's future

today. The defence secretary was in Glasgow at a company that makes

periscopes. He was there to remind people that the business of defence

means jobs. The Ministry of defence in the UK buys much of its

capability from its indigenous industrial base. That is not for

reasons of sentimentality, for reasons of strategic control, of

being able to manage the security of plants and facilities and for

reasons of resilience in times of conflict.

Philip Hammond insisted the purpose of this visit was not to attack the

Nationalists or make ground water dumber mornings. UKYP and who said

that he did not want to influence the consequences of independence but

how do you reconcile that with the consequence that our jobs are under

threat and that we and our families. ? Also out for the cameras,

Britain's first Sea Lord who made a rare foray into political waters. He

said splitting up the military would be like pulling threads out of a

rope. He said it would be an unravelling of defence capability

both sides of the border. The nature of our military contract with

infrastructure, these people, equipment, indeed the families who

support the hard-pressed Navy, and you will know that we have manpower

pressures at the moment which are considerable, all of those add up to

reconstruct which simply does not clear dividing efficiently. Rather

than a lesser military, the SNP says an independent Scotland would simply

have a different type of military, one better suited to a northern

European nation and crucially trident free. Cuts to personnel,

cuts to spending, cuts to our historic regiments, that is the

legacy of the UK Government and an independent Scotland will have the

resources to pay for what we require giving us the appropriate defence

capabilities and will see us getting read of the things we do not

acquire, like Trident. Is always what we have heard two

people and bluster or warning? The decision of whether to replace the

ageing Trident system will be taken in 2016. If the UK Government

decides not to call for a like-for-like replacement, it is

possible that nuclear weapons will leave the claim either way. -- leave

the river. I'm joined now from Aberdeen by Dr

Colin Fleming of Edinburgh University and the Scottish Centre

on Constitutional Change. And here in the studio by Dr John Macdonald,

Director of the Scottish Global Forum defence think tank. John,

let's start with this business about Trident. Is there a lot of posturing

going on here? Do you think actually maybe what we are seeing being

hinted from all sides is that there could be a basis for negotiation?

Yes and there is clearly a lot of posturing going on. Regarding how

much of the negotiation tool it will be remains to be seen. But take us

through this. In your judgement, realistically, if there were to be a

vote for independence and the Scottish Government wanted to get

rid of Trident, what your opinion is a reasonable claim done acting skill

for doing that? I think they take skill set out in the white paper is

realistic. They are looking at notional getting rid of Trident

within a 2020 time frame but the wording suggests there is also that

of wriggle room is that is required. -- there is also a bit of wriggle

room. This is a democratic process. The SNP has not hijacked anybody

with this notion to get rid of Trident. The Scottish public seem

broadly supportive of getting out of it and it seems to get done -- seems

to be popular with those who will vote no night. Also there is the

element of a constitutional ban. It carries a lot of weight. Military

boffins and ex-generals tend to talk about this in evening business but

what has been overlooked in much of the debate is constitution. You talk

about wriggle room. On the assumption that there is a yes vote,

the British Government would say that it is very difficult because

they have to construct new societies which will take time and money,

you're going to have to be a bit flexible. It is not in our mutual

interest for you to start moving Trident over Scotland with nowhere

to go. Do you think there is the basis for negotiation? Yes and I

think that would be sensible. Common sense has two prevail and the SNP, I

think, has made quite clear that it wants rid of Trident. The UK

Government is fully aware of that but it makes no sense to try to push

this any faster than it will go. Ultimately, of course, this will

come down to negotiations which will take place after a yes vote. What is

your view, Colin, and whether there is flexibility? Broadly in agreement

with John, actually. There are a couple of things I think we need to

think about. One is the fact that the SNP, the Scottish Government,

have said they will move Trident. I do not think anybody after a yes

vote can deny them that right so the question is over ten skills. I

cannot see the SNP going back on their decision to remove Trident. In

fact, they will go ahead with that, I am sure. The interesting question

is over ten skills and I would suggest that there is wriggle room.

I think there should be room to negotiate this and the Trident

issue, the nuclear fleet, is part of a wider defence package that will

need to be negotiated. For example, the Scottish Government are talking

about the transition phase. To have a good relationship, a phase

transition, you need a good relationship with the rest of the

UK, this would be a good place to start. I think both sides know that.

I get the feeling from the Scottish Government, in paper and through

interviews, that there is no appetite to go down that road. I was

thinking perhaps in a broader context. Although Philip Hammond has

denied that he was the Minister who told the Guardian that in fact a

currency union would be perfectly negotiable, it is an obvious area

where you can see a trade-off. You talked to us about a currency union,

we will talk to you about delaying getting out of Trident until you can

find somewhere else to put it. Absolutely. There are lots of areas

were you this and perhaps the access to NATO membership would be another

one. If you give us time, we will agree membership. If there are

buyers, I do not personally think they are to NATO membership -- there

are two NATO membership but if there are I think it would be the rest of

the UK cause a problem. Having some form of wriggle room, not a

situation where nuclear weapons would be in Scotland indefinitely

but when Scotland understood that the rest of the UK needed time to

decide whether the needed or wanted nuclear weapons or have time to

build new facilities. That could be something in terms of the EU

negotiations as well and whether Scotland have fast track. This is

one issue, is not, John, we are an independent Scotland would be in a

very strong negotiating position. You can argue about the rights and

wrongs of a currency union. One argument is that all of the cards

would be in the hands of the UK, whether things are subsidised would

be up to the UK. On this one, Scotland would have something which

the UK really means which is some sort of negotiated transfer of these

weapons. Yes, I think some people frown a little bit and I think it is

quite cynical to call Trident a bargaining card but I think it could

be looked at in that way. I think the narratives we have seen lately

reveal something which I think is quite welcome. I think that the UK

Government has been seeing up until now it will not help, it will not

negotiate, Scotland will be isolated and me. The narrative that is

emerging now is far more realistic. It is suggesting that the UK will be

hit by an independent board as well and to me suggests a long overdue

acknowledgement that there is a neutral symbiosis between Scotland

and UK and that if is going to work post yes, there has to be a lot of

mutual symbiosis. It is not that Scotland will thought yes and the

lingering in the North Sea on its own. Counterintuitive though it may

seem, recent comments from there in body actually suggests a growing

awareness of this symbiosis between Scotland and the UK which can

actually lead to a far more constructive and mature dialogue

about what follows a yes vote. The whole Trident issue could go all if

Britain as a whole decided it did not want to build a new one?

Absolutely, it could. Indeed I suspect that is not on the cards

just yet. The nuclear deterrent has been given a little bit of life by

the situation in Ukraine and the return of great power politics. I do

not know is that the last or not but I think there would be an argument

for its continuation. Give us a sense of the ten skills. I know

money is being spent on a Trident replacement at the moment but this

is preparatory stages. -- give us a sense of the timescale. When Woody

decision have to be made to stand very serious amounts of money? The

problem is the word... If you look at the defence and Security review

in 2010, they are talking about passing the main gate of defence

procurement in 2016. Up until that point, it is preparatory. After

that, then it is real sums of money being paid and after that stage it

is very difficult to deal with all of the risks, the technology, and

actually work out a reasonable amount of money. That is the same

with all acquisition processes in the defence industry. OK. You get

certain things that are... OK so the big debate would be around then.

Slightly running out of time. John, your thoughts on the first few

words? Great title! -- first the Lord. It is hard to see them wanting

Scotland isolated. It will be no different to many other states in

the trans-Atlantic region. Is usual for people like that too, and make a

statement which many people will see as a political intervention? Does

not meant to happen but we have seen civil servants doing similar things

in recent times. This comes to the heart of the sense of crisis that is

actually seeping into the UK establishment. They realise that the

referendum is uttered, they are taking notice of it. Please see the

re-export rising in the polls and there is a long overdue awareness

that this is serious and has a serious invocations. I would also

save possible that although the letter from all of the admirals made

headline news, this is by no means the majority view within the UK

military establishment. There have long been known to be great

reservations about renewing Trident. So whilst this apparent concern

about losing Trident has made front page today, it is not... So the

political debate and is talking about but Colin Fleming, who comes

from within the military... Indeed, it is very logical. The MoD sources

saying that Triton is not what they want. Thank you very much indeed.

The ministerial day-trip has become a feature of political life in

recent months. Philip Hammond is just the latest Secretary of State

to catch the early plane North to deliver a warning about the

consequences of Scottish independence and fly back to London

in time for tea. Those in favour of the union may still be ahead in

polls, but the yes vote has crept up recently. In the last week alone

there have been suggestions of soaring energy bills, suffering for

the world's poorest people and, who could forget, a cataclysmic impact

on geopolitics if we vote yes. Have those campaigning for a no vote

taken Project Fear too far? Huw Williams reports.

In the end, perhaps, all advertising comes down to a choice between hope

and fear. Martin Luther King... We, as a people, will get to the

promised land! Private James Fraser. We are doomed! To be quiet, Fraser.

In the last few days, we have had a string of warnings, call them smear

stories if you will come from Better Together. Whether it is about

currency union, Jim Murphy's destructive change, cataclysm,

higher energy bills or damage to defence. The more these doom laden

warnings come out about pensions being affected, jobs being lost,

exports being lost etc, the more people start to disbelieve it.

Because it begins to strain credulity. Family think Lynne Better

Together has gone beyond losing credibility, that its tactics are

counter-productive. The story which said something like England won't

let you into the pound number one frames things in terms of England

versus Scotland. England is still in Scotland what they cannot do.

Secondly it implies that England is acting in ways that are at odds with

the Scottish democratic spirit and third in suggests that England is

dominating Scotland. All three things together actually act very

much into the hands of the yes campaign. But there is one further

factor. Any parent knows that if you tell a child they cannot do this

then even if they don't particularly want to the action, they will do it

just to show they can. The psychological server that is

reactor. If you try to take away somebody's autonomy, they will

assert it. He says that causes the two campaign groups to be seen

differently. It has been portrayed in such a way that the no campaign

is the other, telling us what we should and should not do. If there

is one basic rule of influence that psychology shows with it is that I

would groups are very bad at influencing us and we are far more

likely to be influenced by people who we think of as one for us. But

perhaps this is not that surprising that there are differences between

the two sides of the debate. The yes campaign was much better organised

and better funded from the word go. There is a large band of maybe

10-15,000 activists out there for whom this is the dream come true.

You know, this is the moment when they can hopefully when independence

for Scotland. It is not quite the same if you are a Better Together

campaigner. The union is the fact of life. Why would you want to work? It

does not released the blood in terms of going out to campaign on it.

But maybe the real difference is that a cry of freedom will always

make a better rallying call than a promise of more fiscal autonomy in

an enhanced devolution settlement. I am drawing by the journalist and

commentator Katie Grant and by the former Labour media adviser Simon

Pia. Does the better together campaign have a problem? Yes. It had

a problem to start with, it is not as appealing as yes, it does not

sound so appealing, and arguing for the status quo is always more dismal

than arguing for something which promises to be new and exciting.

They did have a problem. It also has a problem in that it is not a unity.

The Labour Party and the Conservative party do not want to

appear on the same platform, so there is a division which has not

been sorted out. In some ways, they are sometimes invisible, except when

they are saying unpleasant things. What do you make of these ministers

coming up on day trips? I am not sure how much it is coordinated.

That is just the thing, it is an uncoordinated my asthma, let's go up

and say this. To the outsider, it looks chaotic and it looks as though

people suddenly remembered that the referendum is going to come, so they

send people up to say something and they disappear again. It is a very

strange organisation, it seems to me. The big voices which could be

really powerful and continually tell us good things about the union,

Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, they speak and then they vanish. There is

no one concerted voice, whereas the yes campaign has one unified voice.

Did you think there is a problem? It is fundamental. There is a famous

quote, the best lack all conviction, the worst fault of passionate

intensity. They have the passionate intensity. He was referring to the

growth of nationalism across Europe, and the disruption it

caused, but the Nationalists have the passionate intensity, which

takes logic and rationality of the argument. What Philip Hammond was

saying was fairly logical and rational, that there could well be

jobs lost in the defence industry, and it is quite a major part of the

Scottish economy, and it is reasonable to ask the question. But

the Nationalists have the better PR, they have been working towards this

for 80 years, and it has caught the Unionist side on the hop, nobody in

the political establishment saw this coming, and right across the Western

world we have had a reaction against establishments. They are all quite

different political movements, but we live in an age of this. What

about this issue about Labour's role in this? You use to advise them.

They do not seem to be able to make up their mind whether they want to

be part of the campaign and then they pop up under a different

banner, it seems a bit confused, what they are trying to pitch.

Labour, like the other unionists, have been caught on the hop. I

wanted a referendum in 2008. Labour would have been in a better position

to appeal to Scotland, whereas the anti-Tory feeling is very visible in

the Scottish psyche now, so when Philip Hammond or any Tory minister

comes up to Scotland, you can tell they are afraid, they feel

uncomfortable being here. Labour could have played this in a

different way. Of course, Labour deserves a lot of criticism for

this. Labour have been too defensive, Alistair Darling has been

a lone voice, but people like Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander, where are

they? The big East of the last decade or so, Gordon Brown, John

Reid, they should be entering into the fray. People making the most

passionate defence of solidarity across the UK, it is down to Brian

Wilson and George Galloway. That is not what they would want. But they

have got to be bolder. That is what Alex Salmond has always been, he is

bold, brash, vulgar, populist. They want it on the ground, they do not

want a logical, rational discussion, they are appealing to the

heartstrings. You criticised the way they are running it, what could they

do, realistically, to turn things around? They could cheer up, start

telling us... Gordon Brown might crack a smile, tell us the benefits

of the union, of which there are benefits, which do not just involve

it being worse if we fall apart. Should they turn down the negative

stuff? Yes, as the psychologists would say, if you carry on saying

blooming things, people do not listen. We need cheerful messages.

The no campaign were the out party, the yes campaign... In many ways,

after September the 18th, if there is a no vote, and it is narrow, we

cannot be gloomy about it, we have to feel that we have done something

that is positive, and if there is a yes vote, the yes campaign will feel

it is immensely positive. The no campaign has got to have a new

road, and that is what they need to be pressing, if you don't know, --

if you vote no, things will be better. That is what they need to

tell us. The front pages. The Scotsman leads

on inflation, down to 1.6%. The picture of the situation in

Ukraine. That is all we have time for, I am

back tomorrow. Good night. Another cold one tonight, but

another fine day for England and were. Plenty of sunshine to come.

Windier further north and west, cloudy with rain across Scotland and

Northern Ireland. It will feel colder. Patchy rain extending into

Northern Ireland, and the West of Scotland. Still some dry spells

across the East of Scotland, but the odd spot of rain. Across the border,

we emerge into sunshine for England and Wales, it will be another

stunning day. As we have seen recently, around the coastal fringe,

and onshore