Hiroshima Day, 2018

On this day 73 years ago, the United States exploded a nuclear bomb over Hiroshima, the first and also the second-last use of nuclear weapons in war time.

The United Kingdom’s supply of nuclear missiles are stored at their purpose-built home in Faslane.

The majority of Scots support a no-nukes Scotland.

Scottish Labour, the SNP, and the Greens all support not renewing Trident.

All of this adds up to the surety that when Scotland becomes independent, and Faslane ceases to be a UK military base, the nuclear missiles must go.

But the removal of Trident is always going to be the biggest problem the Westminster government/the UK’s Ministry of Defence has with Scottish independence, because not only is there nowhere else for it to go and it would take a couple of decades to build an alternative site, there isn’t a realistic alternate site in the rest of the UK for deep-water nuclear submarines.

Devonport is physically possible but is a political impossibility, certainly for any Conservative government (and in a twenty-year construction plan there will likely be at least one Conservative government): while Scots feel uncomfortable about how near Faslane is to Glasgow, Devonport is literally in the middle of Plymouth. Pembrokeshire is a technically feasible location, but building an entirely new military depot for nuclear weapons on the coast of Wales creates a whole new political problem for rUK after iScotland has voted Yes and departed.

Political Smearing: Project Islington, I

On Friday 11th September, David Cameron intended to launch Project Islington: a series of dirty-bomb attacks on Jeremy Corbyn based on weeks of research over the summer as the Tories realised to their horror that the backbench Labour MP from Islington North with all those dreary left-wing ideas might actually win.

Prime Ministerial staff have been trailing Corbyn round the country ever since the YouGov poll revealed on 22nd July that Corbyn had a solid lead over any of the three candidates the Tories would have preferred to be leading Labour today.

Unfortunately, Cameron was caught making a little quip about people from Yorkshire

“We just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn’t realise they hated each other so much.”

when he didn’t realise the mike was live, and what should have been a resounding speech denouncing Jeremy Corbyn became an amused discussion of Cameron’s loose lips.

Leaning towards No

I am undecided between devolution and independence.

But I am leaning towards a No vote on 18th September, because the SNP are pushing currency union. And currency union is not independence. Currency union means that key decisions about the Scottish economy will be made by the Bank of England in the City of London.

The SNP are fond of asking, how many countries which have become independent have ever wanted to go back? But if they asked instead “How many countries which have given up control of their economy to a bank in another country have regretted this?” they’d get a much different answer. And that’s what the SNP are offering.

Alex Salmond is no Nick Clegg

I was disappointed when the SNP voted to join NATO if Scotland became independent on Friday. The only positive reason I have for voting Yes so far is that the SNP’s policy was to get rid of nuclear weapons if Scotland became independent. That policy would have been tough to maintain in the face of rUK opposition, since it would be impossible for rUK to build another base for its nuclear weapons at Faslane in the time planned between vote and independence, but it will be impossible if it’s attempted in a kind of “we want to join NATO but we’re getting rid of nuclear weapons: we don’t care that this means rUK loses its nuclear weapons” game.

As the Scotland on Sunday rightly notes, this is unrealistic: the movement in the SNP to reverse their anti-NATO policy is a means of reversing their no-nukes policy without officially saying so or needing a vote.

The other issue is the unrealistic basis of the entire debate, which was only about membership of Nato. This was endorsed, but without the SNP abandoning its opposition to nuclear weapons based in Scotland. As things now stand, the SNP is committed to Nato membership – but with the proviso that Nato’s nuclear weapons are not hosted on Scottish soil. To remain anti-nuclear while professing loyalty to Nato is an untenable position.

The Sunday Times poll noted that winning 50%+ support for independence is fundamentally dependent not on anything the SNP or Yes Scotland have announced they’re doing or campaigning for, but on whether Labour can win the 2015 election. There’s a hard core of support for independence, and from my own experience, the hard core are generally better at convincing themselves than anyone else. There’s a fairly definite proportion of people who are likely to vote No, and there’s about 17% who identify themselves, like me, as undecided.

Hiroshima

CND representative, Ben Folley, reports from Hiroshima on 6th August:

‘As the delegates pour into the city, a peace march of hundreds who have walked from Tokyo also arrives at the Memorial Peace Park. The Japanese anti-nuclear movement is growing – many are from amongst the hibakusha – the survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But many others are young people – around 600 attended Saturday’s youth rally, calling for a nuclear free world.

On 6th August 1945, a nuclear weapon was used in war for the first time. Three days later, over Nagasaki, a nuclear weapon was to be used in war for what, so far, has been the last time.

The artist Isao Hashimoto made this film as a “bird’s eye view of the history”, a month per second. “The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted. I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world.” Isao Hashimoto was born in Kumamoto prefecture in Japan in 1959.

Our constitution, July 2012: Environmental rights

1. Enhanced constitutional rights (d) Environmental rights (eg prohibition of nuclear power)

It is customary for capitalism to regard the environment as an infinitely renewable resourse. The dangers of this custom have been made repeatedly clear, but the custom still continues: whether hunting sperm whales to near extinction or logging forests or pumping oil.

Left unchecked, climate change will accelerate. The use of fossil fuels, a growing demand for energy and increased deforestation will escalate emissions of carbon dioxide to potentially irreversible levels. Uncertainties in the scientific understanding of global warming do not warrant a ‘wait and see’ attitude and there is much that we can do now that makes both environmental and economic sense. (Scottish Environment Protection Agency)

It’s an idea so far only in utopias

Our constitution, July 2012: Scottish Defence Forces

“Provision for Scottish Defence Forces under control of Scottish government”

Today in the Scotland on Sunday, Euan McColm takes up his keyboard and goes to battle for the Scottish military

One of the ways in which die-hard SNP members kid themselves that their party is still in the slightest bit radical is through their approach to defence. The Nationalists’ broad “nukes out, troops home” mantra may, from time to time, chime with a wider public mood. But it’s a stance adopted in the days when the notion that an SNP politician might ever have to seriously consider the defence of an independent Scotland was laughable.

One of the big things that will change for Scotland if we become independent: The UK is about 22nd in the world for population size. But Scotland, which is between five and six million people, will be somewhere between 110th and 118th for population size. Our neighbours on this list won’t be France and Italy any more; they’ll be countries the size of Nicaragua or Denmark or Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan or Slovakia or Finland, Singapore or Turkmenistan or Norway.

Everyone knows this – the SNP keep pointing at Norway and Denmark, European democracies the size of Scotland, to prove that bigger isn’t necessarily better.

But one change which this sizing down makes inevitable, which I think any realistic person will have to accept:

Countries the size Scotland will be don’t go to war for fun.

Sixty years? My dad’s worked for longer than that

My dad graduated in 1948, and, even then a committed pacifist, went off to work in India for two years as a volunteer for the Friends Ambulance Service. He’s worked for sixty-four years: teacher, Peace News seller, anti-nuclear activist, campaigner for peace and justice, parent and grandparent. No one will put my dad on a ten pound note for his exceptional public service and unwavering dedication to duty. (And he would be highly embarrassed if anyone were to suggest it, though I like the idea that I could always bank on my dad to buy me a cup of tea and a scone.)

I liked Patrick Harvie’s motion for debate

The parliament congratulates Elizabeth Windsor on the occasion of her diamond jubilee; expresses its gratitude for her exceptional public service and unwavering dedication to duty over sixty years in a changing world; affirms the respect that is held for all such dedicated public sector workers; and looks forward with anticipation to a broad debate about the best means of choosing a head of state in an independent Scotland.

and I am sorry the Scottish Parliament instead wasted parliamentary time in in a kneejerk yes-ma’am congratulatory fest for one of the richest women in the world. Alan Cochrane’s spite about Patrick Harvie’s affirmation of respect says a great deal about the Torygraph, but nothing we didn’t already know.

As others have noted: in Scotland, we’re mostly just not that keen on Royalty.