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Speech in Scottish Parliament Bruce Crawford |
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| 21 December 2006 | ||
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Bruce Crawford (Mid Scotland and Fife) (SNP): I say to John Home Robertson that £25 billion buys a lot of conventional weapons. I wonder whether his loyalist speech was his application to get into the House of Lords—he will no longer be able to buy a place there, because the SNP MPs have put a stop to that nonsense. Nicola Sturgeon raised the moral case against the renewal of Trident, which she rightly described as being against the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. I want to expose the flaws in the incredibly dodgy dossier—the white paper—which is another dodgy dossier from a dodgy Government. Maureen Macmillan's amendment states: "the UK Government has initiated a debate on the future of the independent nuclear deterrent force and urges everyone in Scotland to take part in it". However, according to Labour members, that means everyone except members of the Scottish Parliament. How contradictory can people be? This must also be the shortest debate in history. John Home Robertson: The SNP timetabled it. Bruce Crawford: I am talking about the debate on the white paper, not the one that we are having today. On 7 December, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, wrote to George Bush and said: "We have decided that we will replace the Vanguard submarines with another class of submarines in the 2020s, and would like these submarines to continue to carry Trident II D5 missiles. Accordingly, we wish to participate in the planned life extension programme for the Trident II D5 missile, which we understand is intended to extend the life of the missiles into the 2040s." "Please, George, can we be in your gang?" That is what that letter was all about. On the same day, George Bush replied: "the United States fully supports and welcomes the intention of the United Kingdom to participate in the life-extension program" of Trident. The decision has already been made by Blair and Brown and Jack McConnell, and the rest of the Labour Party is following along nicely. Phil Gallie accused the SNP of trying to stand up for Scottish jobs in Rosyth. I say that the SNP is right to argue that, if we are taking the risk, our people should be getting those jobs. As a consequence of Malcolm Rifkind's decision, we now have seven rusting hulks in Rosyth. That is our inheritance from a Tory Government. Further, the Labour Party can give us no lectures on jobs, given the thousands of jobs that have been lost in Rosyth since it came to power. Jackie Baillie: Will the member give way? Bruce Crawford: Jackie Baillie asked for honesty, but she should be more honest. She said that 11,000 jobs would be lost if we did not have Trident. However, in a written answer, Geoff Hoon, the then Secretary of State for Defence, said: "The number of civilian jobs which directly rely upon the Trident programme is estimated to be 936 in Scotland, with an additional 6,640 in the rest of the United Kingdom. The number of civilian jobs which indirectly rely upon the Trident programme is estimated to be 300 in Scotland and 5,700 for the rest of the UK."—[ Official Report, House of Commons, 21 February 2005; Vol 431, c 128W.] Jackie Baillie says that her position is multilateralist. If that is the case, she also wants to negotiate away those weapons, which means that she also has to answer the question of what she would do with Trident on the Clyde. Jackie Baillie: I would be delighted to. Bruce Crawford: Sit down. The member has had her chance to speak. Christine May said that we are having this debate because we want to avoid other issues. However, she then airbrushed out any Trident content from her speech. The purpose of this debate is to ensure that the members of the Labour Party are held to account and are forced to debate these issues in the Scottish Parliament. Sarah Boyack: Will the member take an intervention on that point? Bruce Crawford: I want to make some progress on the issue of Trident being a deterrent. Michael McMahon (Hamilton North and Bellshill) (Lab): This is not a debate, it is a lecture. Bruce Crawford: Michael McMahon is right to say that a debate is not happening in the country. However, he is one of the people who signed up to the position that he does not approve of—our having the Trident weapons system in the future. We will see how he votes at 5 o'clock. In the past, an intellectual argument was made for having Trident as a deterrent. People who held that view said that the Russian bear was a problem and that the Soviet bloc posed a threat. I never accepted that argument, but at least it had some intellectual rigour. Today, however, we should be asking ourselves who the Trident weapons are aimed at. The answer is no one. Who will they be aimed at in the future? No one really knows. Occasionally, when Blair, Brown or other Labour members get into a hole, they start trotting out the names of Korea or Iran or even suggest that the Russian bear might return. That is no way in which to properly formulate foreign and defence policy. Certainly, it is not a sound basis for spending £25 billion on a new weapons of mass destruction system—a deterrent with no clear enemy targets. The white paper is a policy of hopelessness and despair. The truth is that Blair, Brown, the First Minister and probably many of the Labour back benchers have now abandoned multilateralism in favour of retaining nuclear weapons for all time. Jackie Baillie: What? Bruce Crawford: The white paper kills multilateralism stone dead. I suggest that Labour members go and read it and find out the truth of the matter. Paragraph 3.8, on page 19, says: "Currently no state has both the intent to threaten our vital interests and the capability to do so with nuclear weapons" and paragraph 3.10 says: "Over the next 20 to 50 years, one or more states could also emerge that possess a more limited nuclear capability". [ Interruption.] Mr Swinney: Read the white paper. It is all in there. The Deputy Presiding Officer: Order. Mr Crawford is speaking; nobody else should be. Bruce Crawford: If Labour's policy is built on not knowing what threats there will be in the future, it can only be a policy to retain weapons of mass destruction for all time. Yes, it is time for honesty, but let us be honest that multilateralism is dead in the Labour Party. There is no question about that. As MSPs, we will have a clear choice tonight. We can decide to support the position of Blair, Brown and McConnell, whose vanity will throw away any moral authority that the UK still has and waste £25 billion, or we can be on the side of the Scottish people and say loudly and clearly that there is no moral, military or economic argument for a new era of weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. The SNP stands four-square with their removal and with the people of Scotland. Where do Labour members stand? |