Scotland’s referendum – Vote NO, lose Faslane altogether!

DON’T VOTE NO TO SAVE FASLANE – ITS GOING ANYWAY!

One of the principle concerns we find on the doorsteps of Argyll & Bute is potential closure of Faslane with a YES vote and an SNP Government.

Two things are immediately worth pointing out.

First, with a YES vote there is no guarantee nor is it a given that SNP would win the first general election within an Independent Scotland.  Remember, Winston Churchill probably thought he was a ‘shoe-in’ for the 1945 UK election after winning WW2.  Wrong, Attley won!  A YES vote would require a significant number of non-SNP votes, especially Labour, Green and Independent voters.

Secondly, with a YES vote and the removal of Trident, the nuclear capability at Faslane the number of job losses or rather re-deployments would be hundreds and not thousands.  The vast majority of nuclear jobs are held by non-domicile who live within the base, don’t spent in the town or the area and return home down south at weekends.  The greater majority of jobs at Faslane would be retained for the Scottish navy and with the increased capacity there is a good possibly there will be a net increase in jobs.

But here’s the thing.  While I believe a YES vote will protect or even grow jobs at Faslane, I also believe that a NO vote will ultimately cost jobs at Faslane.  Not some, but all, and here’s why:

From the days of the cold war on, Russia and America have engaged in a ‘piss’in’ contest to see who can build the biggest and most powerful nuclear weapons.  We called this the ‘arms race’.  we got to the point where the US could destroy the world about 15 times over and Russia about 18 times over.  However, the balance of power flipped backwards and forwards taking into account who could react quickest, who could knock-out the most of each others nukes, and so on.

Have you ever heard anything more stupid in your life.  These boys needed a good talking to, and have their ‘toys’ taken away.  First of all, it’s impossible to destroy the world 15 times over, or even twice or even 101%.  Even a child can work that one out!

OK, so we’ve enjoyed nuclear stability, if there is such a thing, since 1946.  No country, since the US, has used a nuclear device in anger, and thanks Christ!

We call this ‘mutually assured destruction, or MAD’.  One of the reasons we don’t want certain countries to get nuclear weapons is because we believe they don’t care about that, we believe they are MAD – they host a load of ‘suicide bombers’ and life is cheap.  But there is a contradiction, we don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons, but Pakistan has them …. oops!

I think we can be pretty certain that the nuclear super-powers are about to kick-off a nuclear holocaust where everybody and everything is wiped out.

Basically, we have mega expensive weapons we can NEVER EVER use.

But what if we had smaller nuclear weapons.  Weapons of kilotons rather than hundreds of megatons.  Guess what, we have them.  Call them battlefield weapons, tactical weapons … whatever … I call them weapons we can use.  These weapons can be deployed to vaporise a small area.  Actually, quite a small area.  If you were about 4 miles away, chances are your windows wouldn’t even get blown out.

Suppose, just suppose, that one of the super-powers were to identify an small area where there is an almost 100% concentration of ‘enemy.  Tactical nuclear strike, zap, game over, problem solved.  It could be Tikrit?

What response would we get from one the other nuclear super-powers? global holocaust? now that would be really silly!  There may be a retaliation from one of the super-powers with another tactical strike.  However, somewhere south of Armageddon they would call a truce and begin the process of reconciliation – and the world is saved … for now.  Put simply, if you are a super-power with strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, you actually have weapons you CAN use without the inconvenience of mutually assured destruction.  Some might say, this is not so MAD?

SO IF YOU ONLY HAVE STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS – IT’S A DISADVANTAGE

Now back to the plot.  What if a Government was faced with an upgrade cost for their strategic nuclear weapons of £200 – 250 Billion … ouch.  What if that Government already had a dirty little £1.5 Trillion debt secret?  What is that Government was staring into the financial abyss – financial Armageddon!

This is not the stuff of fiction.  This is Trident, this is Westminster, this is today.

What would you do?  I know what I might do.  Scrap Trident, spend half on tactical nuclear weapons and use the difference to pull a little back from the brink.

You may think this is fantasy.  You may think Westminster would never do anything so hair brained.

You may think so, but this is the Government who has just launched a new super aircraft carrier … with no planes.  A floating car park if you will.  But don’t worry, Westminster has a master plan.  Build lots of new planes.  Hell no!  They’re building another aircraft carrier!! you couldn’t make that up.

Does the prospect of scrapping Trident in favour of tactical nukes look a lot more credible, now?  Of course it does.

And if you want to find out, just votes NO and instead of a massive car park floating on the high seas, we will have a massive car park up the A814 – let’s call it Faslane car park, £1.50 per day with new, uninterrupted views over …. actually nothing but Garelochhead.

COULD WESTMINSTER ADMIT THIS BEFORE THE REFERENDUM – COULD THEY??