At the rate he’s going, the SNP’s hawkish spokesperson on defence, the MP Stewart McDonald, will soon be talking about an independent Scotland having a weekly armed forces day where citizens don camouflage and wargame defending the nation.
McDonald is tasked with making the SNP sound sensible when it comes to defence and western collective security. His latest manoeuvre appears to be to turn his party’s long-standing anti-nuclear weapons position on its head. This would move the SNP on from merely pretending it wants to be a part of Nato to credibly backing an independent Scotland’s membership of the alliance.
When asked in an interview with the BBC if an independent Scotland would ban any nuclear weapons including, for example, a visiting US nuclear-armed submarine, McDonald would only say that an independent Scotland would not ‘permanently host nuclear weapons from other states.’
This is very different from the SNP’s previous intransigent position on nuclear weapons.
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