Caledonia and Catalonia

There were 11 posts here between 2012 and 2015 labelled “Scottish Independence”, a subject of interest to this blog because it might have led to the relocation to South West England of at least part of the Royal Navy (the deterrent submarine force). Now, 30 months after the decisive No vote of September 2014, the independence issue has been revivified by Brexit and “Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will”, although apparently with no mention by the SNP so far of the nuclear weapons issue.

In 2015, before the EU Referendum, I pointed out that the departure of Scotland (Caledonia to the Romans and the poetically inclined) wouldn’t be such a disaster for what would remain of the UK (Not so Little England) as some Remainers were suggesting. But whether the arrival of Scotland would be welcomed with open arms by some of the remaining 27 EU member countries is another matter, particularly for the Spanish, as this except from a BBC Scotland article by Nick Eardley on 10 March suggested:

What of the Spanish problem?

The SNP's Europe Spokesman was in Madrid earlier this week. He's been one of the party figures travelling around Europe trying to drum up support for Scotland remaining a key player, in spite of Brexit. He says the SNP will remain neutral on Catalonia - arguing the case of the want away Spanish region is different from Scotland. Some will interpret that as a way of trying to make Scottish independence - with full EU membership - more palatable to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Esetban Pons MEP is vice chair for Mr Rajoy's People's Party in the European Parliament. He told me: "If Scotland in the future wants to come back they have to begin the procedure as any other country." 

But, I asked him, would Spain try and veto Scotland re-entering? 

"No because if you are thinking about Catalonia the situation is very very very different to the Scottish situation."

So what constitutes different? The first table below compares the UK and Spain and Scotland and Catalonia and also the impact of the latter pair’s removal on the former pair. The major loss would be Spain’s in terms of population and the economy whereas for the UK it would be more significant in terms of physical area.

The next tables show the impact on the UK and Spain for area and population relative to the other EU countries (the UK will be in the EU until 2019 at least) of these losses and where Scotland and Catalonia would enter.

The final table shows the impact in GDP terms. Five countries out of 28 (Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and Italy) provide nearly 90% of the EU budget. Another five countries are the source of the rest.

However, there is one highly significant difference between Scotland and Catalonia. UK public expenditure  per head in England is lower than in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, in effect a transfer of resources (currently around £9 billion in the case of Scotland) which has the effect of reducing differences in living standards. By contrast, Catalonia was sending a similar amount to the central Spanish treasury in 2011. Perhaps not so surprising then that there is a continuing majority in Scotland against independence, even post-Brexit, nor that the opposite is the case in Catalonia!

But perhaps a more intriguing aspect of post-Brexit Spanish-UK relations than Scotland vs Catalonia is Catalonia vs Gibraltar. The latter both owe their present status to the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, as this article from the Guardian in 1977 (recently tweeted by @dentard) reveals:

All statistics from Wikipedia unless otherwise indicated.

Not so Little England

The December 2015 issue of Prospect magazine seems particularly exercised by the possibility that the UK could leave the European Union. Anatole Kaletsky tells readers that “Leaving Europe could be the biggest diplomatic disaster since losing America” – An ugly divorce. Peter Kellner, President of pollster YouGov, warns that “It cannot be taken for granted that voters will keep Britain in the EU” and Edward Docx (Word ® users should resist reading that as edward.docx) thinks that the “in” campaign is faltering, while the “out” campaign has the benefit of Dominic Cummings, who he describes as “ferocious, committed, unafraid, serious, passionate and utterly certain of his cause”. In his article, called The problem with the EU Debate? The “In” campaign… and the “out” campaign on the Prospect website and Nigel Farage’s Dream in the magazine*, Docx warns:

Make no mistake: in less than a year, Great Britain could be out of the EU and no longer Great or, indeed, Britain. David Cameron’s departure will surely follow Brexit, which will also be followed by Scotland’s attempted split from Britain. The splenetic strain of the Conservative Party will be left running Little England—for that is what we will be—and its business for decades to come will be the treaty-by-treaty renegotiation of our relationship with every other country in the world.

Perhaps he’s right, but just how small would this “Little England” be? To answer that, it first has to be defined and presumably for Docx it would consist of the UK less Scotland, that is to say, the countries of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In terms of area, he clearly has a point as the table above shows. During the discussion of Scottish independence in 2014, rUK, (r meaning rump, residual or ‘rest of’), was used rather than Little England, so for brevity I will use it here. rUK has only 68% of the area of the present UK, something which would be reflected in comparisons with the other major EU countries (and the USA):

The UK is the 8th largest EU country (of 28) in terms of area, between Italy and Romania. Curiously, rUK would still have been 9th between Romania and Greece. Scotland would be 15th between the Czech Republic (up to 14th in rUK’s absence) and Ireland. However, in population terms, because Scotland has only 8% of the UK’s people, the difference is rather different, as the next table shows:

So, within the EU, where UK is 3rd largest between France and Italy, rUK would have only dropped to 4th between Italy and Spain. Scotland on its own in the EU would be 19th between Slovakia (up to 18th in rUK’s absence) and Ireland.

Another way of presenting these conclusions is to plot population size against area as below. This shows that rUK would have remained one of the handful of EU countries with a population over 20 million, while Scotland would join the ‘shrapnel’ of over 20 smaller ones. Of course, the disproportionate influence of these countries in terms of their population is an important aspect of the EU’s democratic deficit. It might also explain in part why EU membership would be so attractive to an independent Scotland.

While on the subject of population, the UK Office for National Statitics (ONS) has recently published its projections to 2035. As the table below indicates, if Scotland were to become independent by 2025, the rUK population would be 5.6 million lower than the UK’s would have been. However, by 2035 rUK’s population has increased to the same level as the UK’s had been 10 years earlier.

Even more instructive are the equivalent Eurostat projections out to 2080. By 2050, the UK has become the most populated country in Europe. However, so would be rUK by 2060 – hardly “Little England”. (This table is calculated assuming that Scotland’s population remains at the same percentage of the UK’s from 2030 onwards, whereas the ONS figures show a downwards trend from 2015 onwards).  The quality of life in such a densely populated country as rUK (essentially England) will become is also likely to be on a downward trend.

Finally, and probably most importantly for many who will vote in the Brexit referendum: perceptions of the economic benefits of leaving the EU. The chart below, again from Eurostat, shows GDP per capita in PPS**relative to the EU’s overall 100. Many people would expect rUK to be better off than the UK, which now makes net payments to the EU while rUK is making transfers within the UK to Scotland. Conversely, Scots could be expected to be worse off. Perhaps the “in” campaign, rather than worrying about “Little England”, should concentrate on disproving this expectation – if they can get their arguments past Dominic Cummings.

* On Docx’s own website, it’s called Are we Sleepwalking to Brexit?

**According to Eurostat: “Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure for the economic activity. It is defined as the value of all goods and services produced less the value of any goods or services used in their creation. The volume index of GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) is expressed in relation to the European Union (EU28) average set to equal 100. If the index of a country is higher than 100, this country's level of GDP per head is higher than the EU average and vice versa. Basic figures are expressed in PPS, i.e. a common currency that eliminates the differences in price levels between countries allowing meaningful volume comparisons of GDP between countries. Please note that the index, calculated from PPS figures and expressed with respect to EU28 = 100, is intended for cross-country comparisons rather than for temporal comparisons."

RN Trident after the UK General Election

During the election campaign Labour made it clear that they would continue with a UK nuclear deterrent and that it would by implication be in the form of SSBNs with Trident SLBMs:

Labour remains committed to a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent. We will actively work to increase momentum on global multilateral disarmament efforts and negotiations, and look at further reductions in global stockpiles and the numbers of weapons. (page 78 and 79, Britain can be better, The Labour Party Manifesto 2015)

Elsewhere there were four mentions of NATO, none in the context of nuclear deterrence.

Almost as near to the end of their manifesto, the Conservatives were more specific about the number of submarines and the Trident system:

We will retain the Trident continuous at sea nuclear deterrent to provide the ultimate guarantee of our safety and build the new fleet of four Successor Ballistic Missile Submarines – securing thousands of highly-skilled engineering jobs in the UK. We will work closely with our allies to continue to strengthen NATO – supporting its new multi-national rapid response force. We will maintain our global presence, strengthening our defence partnerships in the Gulf and Asia. Later this year, we will hold a National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review to plan for the future. (page 77, The Conservative Party Manifesto 2015)

There were six other mentions of NATO, again none were in the context of nuclear deterrence.

By comparison, the SNP seemed mildly obsessed with Trident and nuclear weapons, a subject which appeared six times in their manifesto spread from pages 3 to 38 (see Annex below). However, there was no mention of NATO at all, even though the “High North and Arctic are a key priority for Scotland”. Of course, this avoided any need to address the problem of pursuing unilateral disarmament and in so doing destabilising a nuclear alliance, as had been apparent in the 2013 white paper, Scotland’s Future Your Guide to an Independent Scotland (discussed here last year).

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon at a CND rally in April 2015

But the election of a Conservative government seems to have given a green light (if not a blue one) to four new SSBNs with Trident missiles. The bloc of 56 SNP MPs at Westminster could not win a vote against it, even with the support of left-wing Labour and Liberal (Democrat) members. But this ignores the new reality of Scottish politics with the SNP seeking to make any suitable issue – the repeal of the Human Rights Act, for example – into one of Westminster dominating Scotland and so bolstering the case for another independence referendum.

In terms of defence planning, with its timescales of years or even decades at the level of the “National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review”, endorsement of the future of the deterrent can hardly avoid addressing the contingency of another independence referendum in which the No/Yes vote of 45/55% in 2014 might be reversed. So adamant are the views of the SNP on the subject in their manifesto that it seems unlikely that any compromise would be forthcoming in any independence negotiations. The relocation of the deterrent from Scotland to SW England has been the subject of more than one post on this blog. Most recently, last October, I concluded:

Following the referendum result, the problems that might have arisen after independence, of which Trident’s future was just one, have moved off the political agenda. Although the possibility of Scottish independence cannot be ruled out for all time, it seems most unlikely that resourcing submarine relocation would be recommended in the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) due in 2015.

Now I’m not so sure – and having taken so many Lib Dem seats in SW England, the Conservatives will doubtless want to hold on to them. An article in the Financial Times on 14 May, Conservative vote rose in seats receiving extra government money, drawing on Social Market Foundation research, makes the point nicely.



Annex Stronger for Scotland 

And we want the precious resources of our country to be invested in building a better future for our children, not on a new generation of nuclear weapons. (page 3, Stronger for Scotland, SNP Manifesto 2015)

• For no new nuclear weapons – we continue to oppose nuclear weapons and will seek to block a new generation of nuclear weapons, saving as much as £4 billion a year in the mid-2020s. (page 5)

We will invest in our economy to create more and better paid jobs. And we will oppose a new generation of nuclear weapons. (page 7)

We will oppose plans for a new generation of Trident nuclear weapons and seek to build an alliance in the House of Commons against Trident renewal. We will vote for the £100 billion that the Westminster parties plan to spend on Trident renewal to be invested instead in better childcare, education and the NHS. (page 8)

We also propose different spending and taxation priorities. At a time when thousands of our citizens are forced to use food banks, there can be no doubt that spending billions on a new generation of nuclear weapons is unjustifiable. A vote for the SNP is a vote to halt progress on Trident renewal, delivering a saving of £100 billion over the next 35 years. (page 14)

And in a lengthy section on Defence that works for the people of Scotland:

As a northern European nation, our near neighbourhood including the High North and Arctic are a key priority for Scotland. The forthcoming UK Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) must take full account of the particular challenges and opportunities of the northern regional dimension, and of the need to be more effective at combatting cyber-terrorism where the SDSR must lay out a clear strategy, including continued engagement with the Scottish Government.

The SDSR must review the current Ministry of Defence record, which includes falsely inflating spending commitments, mismanaging Army personnel reforms and creating dangerous capability gaps.

In particular, we believe there should be ocean going conventional patrol vessels based permanently in Scotland and will seek the early procurement of multirole Maritime Patrol Aircraft purchased ‘off the shelf’ by the end of this parliament and operating from Scotland. The SDSR must also fully consider the advantages of a defence policy without weapons of mass destruction and wasting £100bn renewing Trident. We will continue in our principled opposition to nuclear weapons and believe that the UK should abandon plans to renew the Trident nuclear missile system. In addition, the MoD should also publish in full current and projected annual costs of the Trident system and its proposed successor programme, including nuclear weapons through-life costs. (pages 19 and 20)

The SNP goes into this election with a clear message - none of us can afford more austerity. Our NHS, our economy and our children can't afford the billions of pounds of additional cuts that the Tories, Labour and Liberals have signed up to. And none of us can afford the £100 billion they plan to spend on new nuclear weapons. (page 38)

No gain for the needy South West

A post earlier this month about the Scottish independence referendum said that the possible relocation of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines to SW England would be revisited. 

Back in 2012 a post appeared here called Would Scotland’s loss be the South West’s gain? At the time there was a prospect of an independent Scotland no longer providing a base for the UK’s nuclear submarines and the Trident nuclear deterrent. The post explored the possibility of relocation of the deterrent and thousands of associated jobs to SW England and concluded:

Recent polling suggests that a majority of voters in Scotland do not want independence and if this continues until the referendum, the possibility of any gain does not arise. Otherwise, if the UK sans Scotland is to continue to be a nuclear weapon state, there doesn’t seem to be an alternative to Trident operating from HMNB* Devonport. A suitable armaments depot would have to be constructed there, or possibly in Cornwall, say by 2025. If this turns out to be not so much ‘implausible’ as impossible, something more radical might adopted, but probably would not be revealed until after the 2015 election. Otherwise Trident’s removal from the Clyde ought to be of considerable long-term net benefit to the economy of SW England in the form of jobs, and expenditure by households and on base support.

A key source for this post was Malcolm Chalmers’ and William Walker’s 2001 book, Uncharted Waters - The UK, Nuclear Weapons and The Scottish Question, although they had come to the conclusion that relocation to Devonport was implausible (page 120). A month later a follow-up post, What would be the cost of the South West’s gain?, appeared here. A cost figure which seemed to have some authority had appeared in The Times:

The cost of moving Britain’s four nuclear submarines from the Faslane base on the Clyde, along with stockpiles of warheads and missiles, could be £2.5 billion, according to former senior military commanders.

This figure’s possible provenance was explored and it was compared with the outturn of a couple of recent major projects audited by the NAO, the post's conclusion being:

Neither of these examples would suggest that £2.5 billion is a wild over- or underestimate.

In August 2014, a month before the referendum, Chalmers, who is now Research Director and Director, UK Defence Policy Studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI), published (with Hugh Chalmers) a detailed analysis, Relocation, Relocation, Relocation Could the UK’s Nuclear Force be Moved after Scottish Independence? To which their answer was Yes - to Devonport and Falmouth:

with the conclusion:

A potential alternative to HMNB Clyde would involve relocating the submarine support functions of Faslane to HMNB Devonport and replicating the munitions-support functions of Coulport from scratch on a greenfield site north of Falmouth. Previous work undertaken at HMNB Clyde in preparation for the current Vanguard-class submarine suggests that this relocation plan could cost between £3 billion and £4 billion (gross, at 2012/13 prices), not including any costs associated with land purchase and clearance of existing buildings at the new munitions-support facility. 

Some of these relocation costs could be funded by the cancellation of planned upgrades to HMNB Clyde to prepare it for a successor to Vanguard. The UK currently anticipates investing £2.3–3.4 billion (at 2012/13 prices) in new infrastructure for a successor submarine. Even if only £500 million of this were dedicated to HMNB Clyde, the net costs of relocating HMNB Clyde may therefore amount to between £2.5 billion and £3.5 billion (at 2012/13 prices), together with any costs associated with land purchase and clearance.

Following the referendum result, the problems that might have arisen after independence, of which Trident’s future was just one, have moved off the political agenda. Although the possibility of Scottish independence cannot be ruled out for all time, it seems most unlikely that resourcing submarine relocation would be recommended in the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) due in 2015. That this potential gain is now not forthcoming is regrettable, if only because Devon and Cornwall are in a poor way, as the Western Morning News recently demonstrated drawing on the ManpowerGroup Pay League. Apparently in terms of averages, workers in the Home Counties and London earn up to £17,000 more than in the South West where, at £24,400, annual pay is almost £3,000 lower than in the the UK as a whole at £27,200. A table gave details at local authority level within the SW Region:

The relocation of work from HMNB Clyde would have had greatest impact towards the end of the list (22, 25, 26, 30, 32 and 35).

Modelling Neverendum

You might wonder why a blog apparently linked to the part of England which is furthest from Scotland takes any interest in the independence referendum held there on 18 September. Firstly, and obviously, all the regions of England would have been affected had the Yes vote won. Secondly, a particular regional interest was the subject of a post here in 2012, Would Scotland’s Loss be the South West’s Gain. This looked at the possible relocation after Scottish independence of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines to SW England, a subject which will be revisited in a future post. In the days after the referendum, two views seemed to emerge. One, delivered outside 10 Downing Street on the morning after by David Cameron, was that

… now the debate has been settled for a generation or as Alex Salmond has said, perhaps for a lifetime. So there can be no disputes, no re-runs – we have heard the settled will of the Scottish people.

But the outgoing SNP leader stated:

… the majority of Scots up to the age of 55 voted for independence, and a majority of Scots over 55 voted against independence … When you have a situation where the majority of a country up to the age of 55 is already voting for independence then I think the writing is on the wall for Westminster.

And his likely successor, currently his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon, was quoted by BBC News as saying when launching her bid to replace him:

… the country could only become independent if the electorate backed the move in a referendum. But she did not rule out the possibility of the SNP including a commitment to hold a second referendum in a future election manifesto.

The leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, subsequently warned that:

The SNP lost. Scotland demonstrated her sovereign will. And yet, people at the top want to run this race again as soon as possible. They want Scotland locked in a cycle of neverendum.

So it’s worth looking again at the actual result on 18 September:

Fig 1: Referendum results

The turnout, as has been widely pointed out, was remarkably high and unlikely to have been improved upon. So, for Yes to have succeeded, about 192,000 No votes would have had to come across. The main sources of insight as to how this could come about in another referendum at some point in the future are provided by opinion polling.

The polls were not startlingly accurate in their predictions in the run-up to the 2014 vote. In March this year a post here looked at one particular Ipsos-MORI opinion poll in detail. It had shown that at that time those certain to vote were divided 32% Yes, 57% No and 11% undecided. As the September vote approached, opinion polls started to indicate that the Yes/No balance had shifted to be much closer – closer in the polls it turned out, than in the actual result. Afterwards Professor John Cutis in his What Scotland Thinks blog concluded that there had been a systematic problem of underestimating the No vote beforehand. However, two essentially retrospective polls were carried out on referendum day by YouGov and Lord Ashcroft Polls and these had overall results close to the outcome and also provided a breakdown of voting behaviour:

Fig 2: Opinion polls post-voting

The two polls’ age data is easier to compare graphically, and tends to bear out Salmond’s view of older voters:

Fig 3: No voters by age from polls

The Ashcroft poll also asked:

Q.8 If it turns out that a majority has voted NO in the referendum, for how long do you think the question of whether Scotland should be independent or remain in the UK will remain settled?

Fig 4: answers to Q.8 by age

From this it is clear that nearly half of those who voted think the issue will not remain settled for more than 10 years, though, as in the 2014 referendum, enthusiasm for changing the status quo is less apparent among the older age groups. So what might happen in another referendum in five or ten years’ time? An impossible question to answer but it is possible to make an assessment, albeit crude, as to how demographics might have an effect. After all, the 16 year olds of 2019 are today’s 11 year olds and the 16 year olds of 2024 are today’s 6 year olds, today’s 11 year olds being 21 by then. A key source is Mid-2013 Population Estimates Scotland produced by National Records of Scotland in June 2014. First of all, their Infographic 1:

Fig 5: From Mid-2013 Population Estimates Scotland

This explains why the population of Scotland increased by 14,100 between mid-2012 and mid-2013. Using the data from YouGov quoted in Fig 2 above on voting preferences by place of birth (blue data below) it is possible to make a crude assessment of the voting impact of migration:

Fig 6: Possible effect of movements to and from Scotland in Fig 5

There are some obvious flaws. Firstly ‘People’ include children under 16 and secondly immigrant and emigrant preferences may be different from those by place of birth: Scottish No voters may be more outward-looking and therefore be more likely to be found in those leaving for the rest of the UK (RUK) and elsewhere than among their stay-at-home compatriots. There are other uncertainties: how many of those emigrating were originally from outside Scotland, went there and then didn’t like it? However, it isn’t easy to see how the net flow of inward immigrants combined with the pattern of the YouGov data could support hopes of a net increase in the Yes vote over the years ahead.

The ‘natural increase’ of 909 conceals much larger underlying population flows. Figure 5 from the Mid-2013 Population Estimates Scotland shows the facts of life and death:

Fig 7: From Mid-2013 Population Estimates Scotland 

(Anyone puzzled by the Male and Female notches at 65/66 should read this post!) Most of the nearly 56,000 deaths each year will be among the older members of the population, who, for this purpose, will be assumed to be over 65. The earlier comparison of No voters by age in the two polls (Figs 2 and 3) suggests that about 65% of the 65+’s are No voters. Table 1 of Mid-2013 Population Estimates Scotland contains details of Scotland’s age breakdown from which the numbers of new voters in 2019 and 2024 can be predicted (ignoring early deaths and migration). If the voting preferences of the new voters continues to be about 50% No, as the polling seems to suggest, there could be a shift to Yes of about 85,000 after 10 years due to ‘natural change’:

Fig 8: How 'natural change' might affect No vote

To describe this sort of modelling as simplistic is to be kind. Some of the underlying assumptions have already been made apparent, and there are others such as a lower turnout in future referenda differentiated by preference – fewer Nos, say. Also, the errors in the polls for subgroups are considerable – look at the two polls’ different estimates for Male and Female preferences (Fig 2 above) – and this can only get worse the smaller the subgroup, eg 16-18 year olds. As a sensitivity test (in italics in Fig 8) the assumptions made above can be altered in favour of Yes. If the No support among the group of emerging voters were to fall to 30% (unlikely), and the deaths were assumed to be among the oldest voters, and they had a No preference of, say, 75% (again unlikely, given female relative longevity and No preference), the shift to Yes would increase to about 190,000 – the number that Yes needed in 2014. This assumes, of course, that the majority of those who voted in 2014, who will still be alive in 2024, keep voting the same way and that the immigration/emigration effect in the meantime is nil.

So even if the emerging voters were Yes enthusiasts, it seems likely that a substantial number of those who voted No in 2014 would have to change their minds for Yes to get a majority in 2024. What might lead them to do so? This really is peering into the Scottish mists, but an unsatisfactory 'Devo max' (further devolution to Scotland as promised post-referendum), a successful Eurozone, a sovereign area solution for the Clyde naval base (keeping jobs and not antagonising NATO) all might help, as might Catalan independence.

On the other hand, the concentrated location of the Yes vote in 2014 is now well understood and the Yes vote might fall in those parts of Scotland not green in this map:

- not everyone in Scotland may warm to the prospect of being governed from the Republic of Glasgow.

Scottish Independence: from polling to voting

John McTernan writing in The Scotsman on 7 March gave his article, What next for Scots after No vote?, over to an examination of the politics of Scotland after September’s independence referendum. He made the assumption that the No vote will prevail. Nothing in the opinion polls suggests he could be wrong, but I thought it might be enlightening to look at a recent opinion survey in some detail to see what might underlie the way it was reported in the media. For example, on 4 March the Daily Telegraph, under a headline, Independence support drops after George Osborne's Scottish pound warning, compared the latest Ipsos MORI poll with an earlier one and concluded:

Overall, support for leaving the UK was down two points at 32 per cent compared to an identical survey conducted in December, while opposition to independence remained unchanged at 57 per cent.

Ipsos MORI have made the details of their survey available to anyone who wants to look at their Tables of data which are broken down as usual under various headings, eg age, gender, social class and so on. (Pollsters tweak their sample (weighting) to match what they think is the profile of the actual electorate – such adjustments are small and their effect won’t be discussed here). The interesting thing about a referendum is that on the day the votes can only be YES or NO, the only other options being to spoil your vote or not go to the polling station at all. But drawing conclusions from the responses to a survey like this one of 1001 people seven months beforehand is more complicated and I’ve attempted to indicate why in the diagram below:

At the top are the responses of the 1001 and, at this stage in the referendum campaign, as well as Yes and No, people quite reasonably can be Undecided. Also, some of the Yes’s and No’s have not made up their minds definitely (percentage figures from Table 3) and similarly some of those who feel Undecided may, nonetheless, have an inclination towards Yes or No (Table 22). The arrows indicate the changes in opinion that these uncertainties could lead to.

The survey asked the 1001 people how certain they were to vote on a scale from 1 (absolutely certain not to) to 10 (absolutely certain to) – 12 didn’t know (Table 24)! There were 779 who were 10s and in the middle layer of the diagram these are again broken down into Yes, No and Undecided. Again, some of these people, albeit definite voters, may yet change their minds (Table 8). It is the nominally Yes and No percentages here of 32% and 57% which the Daily Telegraph quoted. Again there are some arrows to indicate how these opinions might change as well.

779 in 1001 voters definitely voting would be a turnout of 78% of the survey. The table below shows the actual turnout by Scottish voters in elections and referenda since 1979*:

So 78% looks a bit optimistic judging by the last 15 years of turnouts. However, as the diagram indicates, it currently appears that for YES to secure more than 50% of the votes in September, one or more unlikely events would have to occur, for example a substantial failure to turnout by those currently intending to vote NO, or all the currently Undecideds turning out and voting YES, or substantial changes of mind by those who currently consider themselves committed to NO.

At which point, back to McTernan’s article.


*Data up to 1997 from Wikipedia, subsequently from Scottish Parliament.

RUSI and CASD

(ie the Royal United Services Institute for Defence & Security Studies and Continuous At-Sea Deterrence) 

There have been about 15 posts here relating in some way to the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent. This is not least because the submarines might, conceivably, have to be rebased in SW England if Scotland were to become independent, the subject of the last Trident post in December 2013. Since then there didn’t seem to be much of interest on Trident until a letter from two Conservative MPs appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 10 February:

SIR - We do not believe that the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) has, as an organisation, endorsed the idea that continuous at-sea deterrence can safely be abandoned by our Trident nuclear force (report, January 31). The views expressed in the Rusi analyst Hugh Chalmers's convoluted paper are clearly labelled as “entirely the author's own" and should not be ascribed to the institute as a whole. 

His conclusion that “even an inactive fleet of submarines can help to deter actors from seriously threatening the UK” is based on a fallacy. Though admitting that such a fleet “would be vulnerable to a no notice [enemy] strike", Mr Chalmers asserts that “such an attack seems highly unlikely without prior indication or provocation”. 

If we were known to have a part-time deterrent posture, any rational enemy would have maximum incentive to strike without warning, precisely to prevent the reconstitution of our power to retaliate. History abounds with cases of aggression which took the victim wholly by surprise. It also teaches us that some aggressors may take enormous risks if, but only if, they think they may avoid the consequences. 

It is the certainty of retaliation, as much as the magnitude of retaliation, which lies at the heart of deterrence. An uncertain deterrent may ward off some attackers, but it would be an open invitation to others that the risks are now worth taking. 

Julian Lewis MP (Con) 

Bernard Jenkin MP (Con) 

London SW1

Chalmers’ paper can be downloaded from RUSI. The point the MPs were making about responsibility for its contents is perhaps slightly more involved than they suggest. On page ii of the paper it is explained that:

This Occasional Paper is part of a series commissioned by the Nuclear Security Project (NSP) of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), which examines key factors that will shape the UK’s nuclear forces over the course of the next decade.

and

The views expressed in this report are entirely the authors’ [sic] own and not those of the NSP or NTI. For more information, see www.nuclearsecurity.org

whereas on page iv:

The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI or any other institutions with which the author is associated.

which leaves out the “entirely” and introduces a “not necessarily”. As for NSP and NTI, the www.nuclearsecurity.org link didn’t work for me, but NTI does have a website:

The Nuclear Threat Initiative works to strengthen global security by reducing global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons

as does the NSP:

… an effort to galvanize global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers and build support for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

None of which would anyone want to argue against, although, noting the eminence of its four founders, NTI might seem a bit like a CND (“campaigns to scrap nuclear weapons and create genuine security for future generations”) for the Bilderberg/Davos set.

But what of the merits of Chalmers’ paper as disputed in the MPs’ letter? Its main title, A Disturbance in the Force, (as many readers probably know, but I had to turn to Google), is a quotation from the screenplay of Star Wars IV:

Obi-Wan Kenobi: I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

which doesn’t seem particularly apt, given the paper’s subtitle, Debating Continuous At-Sea Deterrence.

The opening sentence is:

The traditional theory of deterrence suggests that the most effective way of dissuading an enemy from hostile action is with the certainty that such action would be promptly followed by devastating retribution.

Surely the word “nuclear” is required before “deterrence” if the appropriate retribution is “devastating”? Then follows:

For the past forty-five years, the UK has provided this certainty by maintaining a nuclear-armed submarine on patrol at all times, ready to fire if required. However, it is also accepted that in practice such certainty is not always achievable.

What is the meaning of “such certainty is not always achievable” in this sentence, given the “has provided this certainty” in the previous one?  Does it mean “has not always been achieved”, or “is not always being achieved”, or “need not be achieved in future”. The sentence is endnoted to page 24 of Michael Quinlan’s Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects, published in 2009. (Quinlan was the top civil servant in the UK Ministry of Defence and is the dedicatee of the second edition of Peter Hennessy’s The Secret State.) This seems to be the passage on page 24/25 which is relevant:

In ideal circumstances deterrence is most securely provided by certainty both that grave misbehaviour will be promptly detected and that condign retribution or rectification will follow. Amid the world's complexities, however, that partnership of assurances is not always achievable. Where that is so there is no option - for all parties - but to deal in probabilities and possibilities. That need not destroy deterrence. During the East/West confrontation leading figures as diverse as President Charles de Gaulle and Dr. Henry Kissinger at one time or another, in their own styles, reminded their hearers that it was at best unprovable that the United States would risk embarking, for European causes, on sequences of action that might imperil its own cities ('sacrificing Chicago for Hamburg'). But the contrary was also unprovable for Soviet leaders. Even a modest chance of a huge penalty can have great deterrent force. In different jargon, the 'expected value, of a disbenefit - the magnitude of the penalty factored with the perceived probability of its being levied - can outweigh even a high valuation of hoped-for benefit.

One is left feeling that Quinlan was dealing with certainty in terms of whether there would be the political will to make use of nuclear weapons, but was not addressing uncertainty in their availability. Nor was he addressing the impact on political will of there being any uncertainty relating to availability. The paper continues:

The fleet of Vanguard-class submarines that currently operates this tag-team patrol, known as continuous at-sea deterrence (CASD), will eventually retire to be replaced by a successor. While current UK policy states that a replacement fleet will take up this baton and maintain CASD for the foreseeable future, this will not be without cost. The UK government has stated that maintaining CASD will require a fleet of at least four submarines, one of which will patrol while the remaining three undertake training, undergo maintenance, or sit in reserve (see Figure 1)

At this point there is a danger of being too picky, for example about the expression “tag-team patrol”.  But if a paper has endnotes at all, wouldn’t it be appropriate to support categorical assertions such as “UK policy states …” and “The UK government has stated …”? The interested reader may wish to know the sources. And Figure 1 has to be remarked on:

“Periods are illustrative only; a period may be longer or shorter than others” - Well, yes. A recent patrol by HMS Vigilant lasted three months, according to the Royal Navy’s website. This was after a five year (60 month) programme of overhaul. Figure 1 is hardly “indicative” or “illustrative” of timescales but could be misleading.

The paper then takes up the 2013 Trident Alternatives Review (TAR) and the subsequent Liberal Democrat policy proposal (covered in a post here, CASD, or not CASD, last October) and explores the relationship between non-continuous patrolling postures and having fewer than four submarines. Some interesting facts are offered. For example on page 4:

The next generation of nuclear submarine will be armed with up to forty warheads on eight missiles. [Endnote 13] On average, therefore, less than half of the missile’s capacity will be used, which increases the range of the missiles up to approximately 11,000 km. This makes far-flung deployments unnecessary by giving the UK’s missiles – in effect – a global range. [Endnote 14]

Endnote 13, (Initial Gate Parliamentary Report, page 4) certainly supports the first sentence. But an 11,000 km range for a partially-loaded Trident D5 missile is not exactly the implication of Endnote 14, the TAR, which, when examining generic delivery vehicles, said:

2.17 Ballistic Missiles (BM): Ballistic missiles perform a guided rocket boost into space before releasing their payload onto a ballistic trajectory early on in flight (i.e. letting the payload “fall‟ through space). This “throwing‟ of the payload onto a high arc gives ballistic missiles long range (circa 10000km). The re-entry vehicles (the payload) then fall through the atmosphere at high speed, requiring advanced defences to neutralise them. Given current UK-US arrangements for the Trident D5 ballistic missile and our knowledge of and experience with this system, it was decided only to model the D5 in this review.

Again, in a paragraph on page 7 of the paper:

Every generation of submarine so far has required a long period of overhaul to conduct repairs and to refuel the nuclear reactors that power them (known as Long Overhaul Period (Refuel), or LOP(R)). During these periods, major refurbishment work is conducted on the propulsion reactors, drive systems, weapons systems and other elements of submarine infrastructure. While the current Vanguard-class submarines require a three-year LOP(R), [Endnote 26] successor submarines will be equipped with a new reactor (the PWR-3) that will fuel each submarine for the entirety of its lifetime, removing the most significant element of current LOP(R) procedures. [Endnote 27]

Endnote 26 is a Babcock International Group PLC media release concerning the current refit of HMS Vengeance in Devonport Royal Dockyard (Plymouth, SW England) which is expected to take three-and-a-half years. Endnote 27 is “Ibid”, but, perhaps not surprisingly, Babcock made no mention of PWR3. However, the Endnote 13 reference (Initial Gate Parliamentary Report) does state on page 5:

PWR3 provides superior performance over PWR2. In availability terms the simplicity of PWR3 and the application of modern design practices and newly matured technology will significantly reduce periods in upkeep and maintenance.

but nothing about “entirety of its lifetime”. On page 13, the reader is told that:

… submarines can be held at varying levels of readiness. As a crisis loomed, submarine reactors could be activated within a day or two, crews could be mustered, and provisions loaded without actually launching the submarine. For instance, even if submarines were not deployed, a ‘sustained’ posture would maintain one submarine ‘on deterrent duty’ and ready to deploy swiftly, perhaps by keeping its reactor online or by a host of other measures.

The practicability of submarine reactors being “activated within a day or two” or kept “online” seems to be key to the feasibility of non-CASD postures. Chalmers, according to his LinkedIn profile, has a degree in astrophysics, so presumably his opinion is informed, but again an endnote source supporting it would be useful. In such non-CASD circumstances (page 14):

Rather than being faced with a single ‘terrible choice’, as a crisis emerged or receded the government would be faced with an array of choices with inactivity at one extreme and the rushed deployment of armed submarines at the other. Choosing which (if any) steps to take may not be easy; calibrating the readiness of nuclear forces in such a way would be entirely unfamiliar to those accustomed to the simplicity of CASD. [Endnote 45] 

(Endnote 45: In contrast, the UK often has to consider the international implications of overt changes in readiness of its conventional forces. “accustomed to simplicity”)

which seems to echo a comment on the first page:

… the civil servants and armed forces that develop and implement the UK’s nuclear-weapons policy have spent their entire careers working within the constructs of CASD. For them, a step away from CASD would be a step (both bureaucratically and philosophically) into the unknown.

Perhaps an explanation for this conservatism can be found later on page 14 when the possibility of A Bolt from the Blue is discussed:

By monitoring the submarines and training activities at the UK’s naval base in Faslane, one can imagine an unknown adversary covertly developing an impression of how quickly the UK could deploy its submarines in the event of an imminent attack. Such an adversary might feel tempted to exploit this window of vulnerability by striking the UK’s forces out of the blue. 

If the UK were unaware of this threat, it would have little chance to prepare a response. Deploying an inactive submarine would not be instantaneous … Without any prior preparation aside from training, current deployment procedures would require a submarine to be activated, loaded with supplies, checked over, carefully armed with up to forty warheads, and then piloted to a safe patrolling zone. In all, these activities take up to two weeks to complete. [Endnote 47]

Endnote 47, unfortunately, is not a source reference for this process but a comment from the author: “To keep health and safety risks as low as reasonably practicable (the ALARP principle) warheads are currently transported and fitted to missiles one at a time.” Even in such extreme circumstances?  But later on page 15 we are told:

… a pre-emptive strike against inactive nuclear forces (through conventional or nuclear means) would be an extremely drastic move. A serious threat to the UK would not come out of the blue in this way.

and

In the unlikely event that this threat emerged without any warning, an aggressor would have to be extremely bold to ignore the probability that such pre-emptive aggression would be met with stern punishment from sources other than the UK, which is likely to remain a member of NATO.

But doesn’t the UK provide part of NATO’s nuclear deterrent, and wasn’t Polaris (and subsequently Trident) made available to the UK under the Nassau agreement of December 1962 on the basis of its being committed to NATO but with independence of operation if supreme national interests were at stake? I suspect that by this time many readers of this post will have lost interest or alternatively will have decided to read Chalmers’ paper for themselves. But in short, the paper goes on to examine the implications of a non-CASD deterrent and how it might be perceived by an adversary. However, on page 18 there is an interesting concession, extracted here but worth reading in full:

… the immutability of CASD disengages nuclear forces from the day-to-day management of international relations. While crises may erupt and recede, the UK’s nuclear forces continue their patrols unchanged and would only play a part in crisis management in the most extreme circumstances. … Adopting a flexible approach to non-continuous postures, in which the UK would calibrate its forces from high to low readiness, would require the UK to consider the status of its nuclear forces on a more frequent basis. In the face of an evolving crisis, the UK would need to take a number of decisions over whether and how to initiate, sustain and ultimately terminate extended periods of patrolling – decisions that are currently unfamiliar. 

… a non-continuous nuclear force would not ‘de-couple nuclear weapons from the day-to-day calculus of national security’; instead, it would pollute areas of decision-making where it was previously of little relevance. 

In this case, a key challenge to abandoning continuous at-sea deterrence may not be the preservation of credible nuclear threats, but the development and implementation of organisational structures that would allow decision-makers the time, freedom and confidence to calibrate nuclear forces in response to emerging threats. At the political level, overt changes to nuclear readiness may have to be explained not just to the public, but also to the UK’s adversaries and allies. …

And on page 19:

A former submarine officer has voiced concerns that if the UK’s nuclear forces are rarely, if ever, called upon to deploy (such as in a ‘preserved’ posture), then a similar rot [to that affecting silo-based USAF ICBM crews] might eventually set in. In this case, rather than reinvigorating morale by moving back to continuous at-sea deterrence, the wholesale abandonment of the UK’s nuclear forces would be a more suitable alternative.

Regrettably there is no endnote as to where these concerns were voiced. Finally, one of the concluding remarks has certainly got it right:

… the desirability of abandoning continuous at-sea deterrence rests upon a rigorous analysis of how non-continuous postures would actually work in practice, with explicit consideration of when the UK might have to call upon its nuclear forces and how exactly it might calibrate them in response to an emerging threat.

Possibly such an analysis wasn’t provided by this paper, but as its author pointed out on page 2, “As always, the devil is in the detail.” My guess is that at some point in the future a Conservative or Labour National Security Council, or some ministerial subset of it, will meet to decide whether to order the third and fourth Successor submarines. They will know things that we don’t, like the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum and the extent of the recovery of the UK economy, and many things we probably never will, like the maintenance requirements of PWR3. One can imagine that if extensive analysis by the RN and the Ministry of Defence shows that CASD can be maintained for a very high proportion of the Trident Successor in-service life (ie to the fifth or sixth decade of this century) with three submarines, there might be reluctance to order a fourth. However, if the fourth Successor makes the difference between sustainable CASD and any of the alternative postures identified so far, it would have to be a group of politicians with a high degree of confidence in their ability to manage a crisis who would decide to spend the money on something else.

New Year Predictions 2014

At the start of the year I post about some of the predictions which people have come out with in the previous 12 months –for the record so far, see my post a year ago. This year I’ve picked three (and a half), mostly about the UK 2015 election, the outcome of which may well become apparent in the next 12 months. I’ve avoided the opinions of politicians – obviously Michael Gove is going to say he’s convinced that the Tories will get a majority in 2015, whether he believes it or not. Instead here are some opinions from observers, not players.

Firstly this from John Rentoul in his Independent Eagle Eye blog in July:

I suspect much of the Labour Party has lulled itself into a false sense of Swedenism* because some polls suggest that people think Osborne is an objectionable piece of work. Of course they do; he is a politician and he is currently in government. What this poll does, however, is to compare his policies with those of the other lot, had they been in the despised position of being in government. 

If Labour haven’t persuaded the voters that things would have been better under them by now (and I’m one of the 32 per cent in that last question, incidentally), they are unlikely to do so by the time of the election, now that the economy is picking up a little. And if Labour cannot do that, it cannot win. 

*Swedenism, n: The attribution to the electorate of generous social-democratic qualities.

Next an Oxford academic, Steve Fisher, in October, all very quantitative and objective at 559 days in advance, in a post on his Elections etc blog, pithily titled: A long-range forecast for a 2015 British General Election based on current polls and historical polls and votes:

Forecast Election Day Shares and 95% Prediction Intervals 

Con : 40.2 plus or minus 11.8 i.e. between 28 and 52 

Lab : 31.8 plus or minus 6.6 i.e. between 25 and 38 

LD : 11.8 plus or minus 14.5 i.e. between 0 and 26 

Forecast Election Day Seats 

Con : 337 

Lab : 265 

LD : 21 

Con majority of 24

Another quant with a high reputation is Nate Silver, “the man who knows everything” according to Will Pavia in The Times (£) in April:

What about Britain’s coalition government, I say. Will it survive? He thinks for a moment. “So, I’ve never quite understood,” he says. “What are the Liberal Democrats getting out of the coalition exactly?” He really does ask the most acute questions. As I struggle to supply an answer, he says: “And does Labour have a charismatic leader?” His prediction, based only on the fact that “you have had a rough several years economically”, is that David Cameron will not be re-elected. 

“He’s awfully unpopular right now,” he says. “Look, this is dangerous, because I can extrapolate from the political science literature in the US. In the US context, the economy is not everything, but it’s an awfully large factor and the personalities of the candidates don’t matter very much in nine out of ten cases. I’m not sure if that’s as true in the parliamentary system. I think the economy bit has generally been shown to be true across different parts of the world.” Cameron might as well call in the removal men.

The “half”? Later in the year, Silver also gave his opinion on the outcome of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum in the Scotsman:

... [he] said polling data was “pretty definitive”. “There’s virtually no chance that the Yes side will win”, he said. “If you look at the polls, it’s pretty definitive really where the No side is at 60-55 per cent and Yes side is about 40 or so. “Historically, in any Yes or No vote in a referendum, it’s actually the No side that tends to grow over time, people tend not to default to changing the status quo. 

… “If there was a major crisis in England – if the Eurozone split apart and there were ramifications economically (for the UK) – the maybe things would reconsidered a little bit. But he added: “For the most part it looks like it’s a question of how much the No side will win by, not what the outcome might be.”

Scotland and Trident

The Referendum on Scottish independence will be held on 18 September 2014. In November 2013 the Scottish Government published a white paper of 649 pages, Scotland’s Future Your Guide to an Independent Scotland. Its Chapter 6 addresses International Relations and Defence and, since posts on this blog in the past have examined the consequences for the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent of Scottish independence, I thought it might be worth extracting anything in Scotland’s Future which seems relevant to that issue.

In brief, and has been said previously, Scotland’s Future states that an independent Scotland would seek the removal of the RN Trident submarine force which is currently based on the Clyde. An independent Scotland would negotiate to join NATO as a non-nuclear member. It is worth noting that the Scottish Government’s proposed timescale for removal of Trident is within the first term of the Scottish Parliament following independence. The first parliamentary election in an independent Scotland would take place on 5 May 2016, instead of the election for the devolved Parliament. Although the white paper states various objectives to be achieved during the first parliamentary term, it doesn’t appear to define its duration. The devolved Scottish Parliament has been holding elections every four years since 1999. However, the current term has been extended to five years to avoid a clash with the UK general election due in 2015. The first term of an independent parliament, if it were to follow established practice, can therefore be expected to end in 2020 or, possibly, 2021.

The white paper might have been expected to respond to some of the points raised about Trident in the Ministry of Defence’s paper, Scotland analysis: Defence, presented to Parliament in October. Some extracts from this are also quoted below. As far as Trident is concerned, Scotland’s Future fails to respond to the MoD’s point that the NATO Strategic Concept makes it clear that:

“the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States; the independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France, which have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and security of the Allies” (paragraph 2.36)

How an independent Scotland’s view that “Trident is an affront to basic decency with its indiscriminate and inhumane destructive power” (page 232) can be reconciled with the NATO Strategic Concept is unresolved. But then, so are other significant non-nuclear defence issues raised in the MoD paper, and these in turn are dwarfed by the problems of EU membership, currency, borders and so on which would arise if there were to be an independent Scotland.


Scotland’s Future Your Guide to an Independent Scotland 

Chapter 6, International Relations and Defence, opens with summary points including:

• Our defence plans focus on a strong conventional defence footprint in and around Scotland and the removal of nuclear weapons, delivering a £500 million defence and security dividend in 2016/17
• Scotland’s security will be guaranteed as a non-nuclear member of NATO, with Scotland contributing excellent conventional forces to the alliance (page 206)

Pages 207 to 251 concentrate on Scotland’s international relations, defence, and Defence Why we need a new approach, is addressed from page 232 onwards:

Improving the way defence is delivered in and for Scotland is one of the most pressing reasons for independence. 

For decades we have been part of a Westminster system that has sought to project global power, giving Britain the capacity to engage in overseas military interventions and to deploy nuclear weapons. 

Scotland has been home to one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, despite consistent and clear opposition from across civic Scotland, our churches, trade unions and a clear majority of our elected politicians [Endnote 255 but should be 254, see below]. Billions of pounds have been wasted to date on weapons that must never be used and, unless we act now, we risk wasting a further £100 billion, over its lifetime, on a new nuclear weapons system. Trident is an affront to basic decency with its indiscriminate and inhumane destructive power. 

Westminster’s commitment to nuclear weapons leaves other aspects of our defence weakened. Costs for the successor to Trident are to be met from within the defence budget, taking money from conventional equipment and levels of service personnel. The Royal Navy will have two new aircraft carriers years before it has the aircraft to put on them. Cost overruns are endemic and major projects have been significantly delayed. Scotland can do better.

On page 237 the five defence priorities for an independent Scotland are identified, including:

• securing the speediest safe withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Scotland

and

• reconfiguring the defence estate inherited at the point of independence to meet Scotland’s needs, including the transition of Faslane to a conventional naval base and joint headquarters of Scottish defence forces

On page 244 the following appears:

Reserve personnel make a valuable contribution to defence capability and will do so in an independent Scotland. Our proposals include a baseline requirement for around 1,700 reserve personnel at the point of independence. However as there are currently an estimated 2,200 trained reserve personnel in Scotland [Endnote 264, see below], it would be both feasible and desirable to increase numbers beyond the baseline that requirement suggests, in order to build flexibility and enhance capability. In the longer term the Government envisages the reserve force building to 5,000 personnel after 10 years.

On page 245/6 it is explained that while details will be negotiated with the rest of the UK, the Scottish Government currently envisages that among other things:

• Faslane will be retained as the main naval base for an independent Scotland. 

… The transition of Faslane from a submarine base to Scotland’s main naval base and joint force headquarters will be managed gradually: personnel and equipment will be brought into the Scottish defence forces and infrastructure will be developed, while the personnel and equipment remaining within the Royal Navy are relocated by the Ministry of Defence. The Scottish Government intends the transition to be complete within ten years [Endnote 265 see below]

On page 246/7 the future sharing of defence facilities is discussed, but:

Negotiations on the maintenance of shared capabilities would not include nuclear weapons. This Scottish Government would make early agreement on the speediest safe removal of nuclear weapons a priority. This would be with a view to the removal of Trident within the first term of the Scottish Parliament following independence. The detailed process and timetable for removal would be a priority for negotiation between the Scottish Government and the Westminster Government. However we have noted the work undertaken by the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which suggests that Trident could be dismantled within two years [Endnote 267 see below] 

The transitional arrangements will support both the day to day operations and the workforce levels at the base. We will retain the capacity for shared arrangements with the rest of the UK and other allies, recognising Faslane’s excellent deep water facilities and its geographical position. There are currently 6,700 military and civilian jobs at HMNB Clyde [Endnote 266]

On pages 250/1 International partnerships are addressed, primarily NATO:

Following a Yes vote in 2014, the Scottish Government will notify NATO of our intention to join the alliance and will negotiate our transition from being a NATO member as part of the UK to becoming an independent member of the alliance.

and

Scotland would take its place as one of the many non-nuclear members of NATO. The Scottish Government is committed to securing the complete withdrawal of Trident from an independent Scotland as quickly as can be both safely and responsibly achieved.

Moving on to Constitutional guarantees, it is stated that:

Only independence will enable Scotland to play a full role working within and alongside the international community in creating the conditions for nuclear disarmament. The development of a written constitution for Scotland would also provide the opportunity to include a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons being based in Scotland.

Later, in Chapter 10, further devolution as opposed to independence is discussed. It is pointed out that in those circumstances:

Westminster would continue to take decisions on defence matters and Scotland would remain the base for the Trident nuclear weapon system and its successor. (Page 336)

The last part of Scotland’s Future consists of 650 questions and answers about independence. Those relevant to this post are:

285. Will NATO membership make it more difficult to secure the removal of Trident? 

The removal of Trident nuclear weapons from Scotland will require negotiation with Westminster and liaison with NATO. But the aim of the current Scottish Government is clear – to secure the speediest safe removal of Trident from Scotland and to join the 20 (of 28) countries who are members of NATO without either possessing or hosting nuclear weapons. We believe that a non-nuclear independent Scotland operating within NATO will be preferable, to the UK, NATO, and our other neighbours and allies, to a non-nuclear Scotland outside of the alliance. 

313. Would you sign/ratify the NPT if/while Trident nuclear weapons were still based at Faslane? 

Yes. We have made a clear commitment to secure the speediest safe withdrawal of Trident from Scotland following independence. Scotland’s ratification of the NPT will not rely on the detailed arrangements for the withdrawal of Trident. 

314. Would the removal of Trident from Scotland result in its decommissioning? 

It is the Scottish Government’s preference to see Trident decommissioned, but that will be a matter for the government of the rest of the UK. 

315. How long will it take to remove Trident from Scotland and who will bear the cost? 

Nuclear weapons have been based in Scotland for almost half a century, despite the long-standing majority opposition of the people of Scotland. In addition, Scottish taxpayer contributions to Trident spending could support many more public sector jobs in Scotland than the weapons system currently brings to the Clyde, and every year therefore Scotland loses out because of the continuance of Trident nuclear weapons. The detailed process and timetable for removal would be a priority for negotiation between the Scottish Government and the government of the rest of the UK. However, following a vote for independence, we would make early agreement on removal of nuclear weapons a priority. This would be with a view to the removal of Trident within the first term of the Scottish Parliament following independence. 

328. Will the armament depot at Coulport remain? 

Our commitment is to securing the earliest safe withdrawal of Trident from an independent Scotland. This includes the removal of all elements of the current system, including the missiles and warheads which are stored for the Vanguard submarine fleet at Coulport. 

534. What powers are currently reserved to the Westminster Parliament? 

Despite many decisions being made by the Scottish Parliament and Government, many key decisions are still taken by the Westminster Parliament and Government, such as: 

… defence – for example, keeping Trident nuclear weapons and going to war in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan

Scotland’s Future Endnotes

Endnote 254 On 20 March 2013, the Scottish Parliament voted conclusively 61 in favour, 16 against and 31 abstentions) in support of the UN Secretary-General’s five point plan for nuclear disarmament and called on the Westminster Government to acknowledge the Parliament’s opposition to Trident. 
Endnote 264 This does not refer to the timeframe for the withdrawal of Trident nuclear weapons and/or the Vanguard submarine fleet, which would be decided and delivered separately as quickly as it can be both safely and responsibly secured. [This Endnote is informative but not relevant to the context it was cited in! ]
Endnote 265 Scotland Analysis: Defence, UK Government, p32. 
Endnote 266 Disarming Trident – A practical guide to de-activating and dismantling the Scottish-based Trident nuclear weapons system, Scottish CND, June 2012. 
Endnote 267 Cancelling Trident - The Economic And Employment Consequences For Scotland.


Scotland analysis: Defence

Chapter 1 addresses Security and protection through integrated defence and describes particular Defence capabilities including the strategic nuclear deterrent (paragraph 1.56, page 39 onwards). There is a text box providing the justification for the deterrent which draws on the 2010 SDSR and 2006 Trident replacement white papers. This is followed by:

1.57 The value of the UK nuclear deterrent to NATO was acknowledged by the Secretary General of NATO earlier this year in a letter to the Secretary of State for Defence, which stated that the UK capability “will continue to play a crucial role as part of NATO’s appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces that both deter and defend against threats to our alliance (Footnote 72, see below).

Chapter 2 addresses Security and influence through international alliances and relationships and a section is given over to NATO membership and SNP policy on nuclear weapons (page 62 onwards) which it is appropriate to quote in full:

2.36 NATO’s Strategic Concept commits the Alliance to the goal of creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons – but reconfirms that, as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, NATO will remain a nuclear Alliance. This position was confirmed in NATO’s Deterrence and Defence Posture Review, endorsed by all 28 NATO Allies, which concluded in May 2012 that “NATO must have the full range of capabilities necessary to deter and defend against threats to the safety of its populations and the security of its territory, which is the Alliance’s greatest responsibility” and that “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States; the independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France, which have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and security of the Allies” (Footnote 112, see below). 

2.37 All NATO nations, whether they possess nuclear weapons or not, are required to subscribe to NATO’s Strategic Concept. Although only three NATO nations have nuclear weapons of their own (the US, UK and France), a number of other Allies host elements of NATO’s nuclear capability on their sovereign territory in peacetime; and 27 out of the 28 nations participate in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (the remaining nation, France, is a nuclear power). The SNP’s stated policy on the UK’s nuclear deterrent capability is therefore problematic, and its opposition to nuclear weapons in the round is inconsistent with NATO’s Strategic Concept. 

2.38 An insistence on the removal of the UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent from Scotland would likely cause significant problems for Scotland in developing its international relationships on a bilateral as well as a multilateral basis. The Henry Jackson Society think-tank has commented that “Unlike the anti-nuclear stance of some existing NATO members (such as Norway, whose stance is held largely in principle), the SNP’s policy would have very real practical implications. Especially problematic are: the SNP’s commitment to the unilateral divestiture of Trident from Scotland, without agreement from other NATO allies; its opposition to nuclear-armed vessels docking in Scottish ports, a position held by no other NATO country; and the possibility of its demands resulting in the unilateral disarmament of another NATO member: the UK.” (Footnote 113, see below). Similarly, the Scotland Institute thinktank concluded that “IS [Independent Scotland] would have to carefully navigate the diplomatic issues related to joining NATO. If negotiations between r-UK [the rest of the UK] and Scotland were deeply problematic, the Alliance would be apprehensive towards importing r-UK and IS acrimony into the organisation. A likely dispute over Trident would also make accession tricky.” (Footnote 114, see below). 

2.39 Even if nuclear weapons were to be removed from Scotland, the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee has suggested that it could take more than 20 years to identify and develop a new base elsewhere at significant cost (Footnote 115, see below). As examples of the potential complexity of these negotiations, Russia’s Black Sea fleet was due to relocate in 2017 from Sevastopol in Ukraine to Russia’s Novorossiysk port, but was granted a 25- year extension in 2010, while the Royal Navy retained access to three Irish ‘treaty ports’ for 17 years after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921. 2.40 The UK Government has made it clear that it is not planning for Scottish independence. If the result of the referendum were to lead to the current situation being challenged, then options would be considered, but any alternative solution would come at huge cost. It would be an enormous exercise to reproduce the facilities elsewhere. It would cost billions of pounds and take many years. Furthermore, if the nuclear deterrent had to relocate, then so would the whole of the submarine enterprise, including the Royal Navy’s attack submarines and the submarine centre of excellence (Footnote 116, see below). This would have a major impact upon the sustainability of the naval base at Faslane, which is the biggest employment site in Scotland with 6,700 military and civilian jobs, increasing under current UK Government plans to 8,200 by 2022. In its assessment of the SNP’s defence policy proposals, the Henry Jackson Society think-tank commented that “While the SNP propose stationing the Scottish Navy in place of the Trident fleet, that would be unlikely to generate more than 1,000 jobs.” (Footnote 117, see below). The 2010 cross party submission to the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review from the Scottish Government and the main Scottish party leaders concluded that Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde “provides a significant skills base in the area and is a significant employer” (Footnote 118, see below). With personnel numbers and MOD infrastructure investment increasing, the importance of the facility to Scotland as an employer and skills base is also strengthening.

Scotland analysis: Defence Footnotes

Footnote 72 NATO praises Royal Navy’s dedication to delivering security, UK Government, , 4 April 2013. 
Footnote 110 House of Lords Hansard Column GC56, 24 Oct 2012. 
Footnote 111 Scotland couldn’t waltz into the world’s clubs, The Times, 18 June 2013,  
Footnote 112 Deterrence and Defence Posture Review, NATO, 20 May 2012 
Footnote 113 In Scotland’s Defence? An Assessment of SNP Defence Strategy by George Grant, Henry Jackson Society, July 2013. 
Footnote 114 Defence and Security in an Independent Scotland, The Scotland Institute, June 2013. 
Footnote 115 The Referendum on Separation for Scotland: Terminating Trident-Days or Decades?, House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee Fourth Report of Session 2012-13, 25 Oct 2012. 
Footnote 116 The Referendum on Separation for Scotland: Terminating Trident – Days or Decades?: Government Response to the Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2012-13, House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, 9 January 2013. 
Footnote 117 In Scotland’s Defence? An Assessment of SNP Defence Strategy by George Grant, Henry Jackson Society, July 2013. 
Footnote 118 The UK Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010: A cross party submission from Scottish Government and the main Scottish party leaders.