From Auslan Cramb, Telegraph: Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who as George Robertson was a Labour defence secretary, said the confirmation from Nato that a separate Scottish state would have to apply for membership had left the SNP facing a “huge dilemma.”
It is committed to getting rid of Trident on the Clyde and he questioned whether its rank and file members would swallow the requirement to recognise the “supremacy” of US, UK and French nuclear weapons.
Opposition parties said Nato’s statement had left Alex Salmond’s defence policy in a “total mess.”
Lord Robertson supervised the entry of seven new members of Nato in 2002 and each one had to accept its strategic concept stating that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, Nato will remain a nuclear alliance.”
He said: “Either the SNP accept the central nuclear role of Nato and show that they will shed any principle to buy votes for separatism, or they reject the nuclear role of Nato and ensure that a separate Scottish state stays out of the world’s most successful defence alliance."
The former cabinet minister added that all members of Nato, including Norway and Canada, backed the statement in favour of a nuclear deterrent. . . .
Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, said the First Minister had finally been forced to accept what everyone else has been telling him, that an independent Scotland would need to apply to Nato. . . .
The SNP is committed to non-nuclear membership of Nato after performing a controversial about turn on its previous opposition to the organisation at its annual conference last year.
Mr Salmond, who is in the US for the Scotland Week celebrations, said he was “certain” that its members would accept an independent Scotland opposed to nuclear weapons. (photo: AP)
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