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Would Scottish Independence Mean the End of UK's Nuclear Arsenal?
Lasrick writes The referendum on Scottish independence on September 18th affects more than just residents of the United Kingdom. All of the UK's nuclear deterrent is located in Scotland, and Alex Salmond and the Scottish government have pledged to safely remove and permanently ban nuclear weapons from Scottish territory within the first term of a newly independent parliament.
Nope
They would just move it to England. Or Wales.
This might be the least intelligent question I've seen on Slashdot.
The article is a load of bollocks, moving the facilities has indeed been looked into but the MoD just hasn't committed to any plan given that no decision on independence has been made yet. The only thing the MoD have ruled out is keeping Faslane as a Sovereign Base Area similar to those on Cyprus.
And regarding the last sentence - Scotland does not unilaterally inherit the UK's nuclear deterrent simply because it happened to be on Scottish soil, so they do not have unilateral authority get to dispose of them. The will be passed to the rest of the UK post-independence, who will then make the decision about what to do.
You realise the reason Faslane is there is because Scottish MPs wanted the investment and jobs in Scotland?
Scotland has only been invaded by, erm, one country, many times as it happens, in the last 1000 years.
there's no USSR
for the moment, but Putin is on top of it
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
The americans have enough already .. there's no USSR .. I wonder why they'd want to maintain an "arsenal" .. wouldnt a few thermo tipped pencils be enough deterrent ?
Ultimately, yes, because you can't expect another country, even a close ally, to risk nuclear war for you. The UK can't guarantee that the States would retaliate if necessary, especially since they would be bringing likely retaliation, and millions of American citizens deaths, on themselves. Nuclear warheads suck, but once you have them you damn well keep them, otherwise the deterrent doesn't work.
Thing is, the UK parties hate, hate, hate the thought of secession. So if they think being uncooperative on the pound will help scare Scots to stay in the union, they'll do that.
But once secession is a fact, that posturing will likely be dropped. UK is probably better served with Scotland staying with the pound than switching to the Euro.
Why? We've *just*... *just* seen how badly a currency union without political union can go in the (ongoing) Euro crisis. Why do you think that's a good idea suddenly now, especially when the direction of integration is going in the wrong direction, towards more divergence. You can't have successful monetary union without shared fiscal policy, and why would Scotland want that after all the effort of independence?
We've actually paid more tax per head, and received less back per head, than England for every one of the last 110 years, which is as far back as the available data goes. So it's long before the discovery of oil.
However, that's not the point. The United Kingdom has, through imperialism and military adventurism, very reasonably made itself the second most hated nation on the planet. I'm tired of being embarrassed to travel on a UK passport. I'm tired of paying taxes to bomb other people's countries. I'm tired of my country providing bases for the US to set up its torture centres. I'm tired of my country supporting every two-bit dictator who will buy weapons.
We can do better than this - and we will.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.