London, Feb 4, IRNA — The Scottish National Party (SNP) has renewed its opposition to nuclear weapons by calling for the removal of Britain’s Trident missiles from their submarine base in Scotland.
“The time is perfect for Scotland to play its part in reducing global nuclear stockpiles by getting rid of weapons of mass destruction stationed on our shores,” said SNP Foreign Affairs and Defense spokesman Angus Robertson.
“Majority opinion in Scotland is opposed to the Trident weapons system that is based on the Clyde (river on the west coast),” Robertson said when opening a major conference in Edinburgh Tuesday entitled ‘Trident and International Law: Scotland’s Obligations’.
The call from Scotland’s ruling party comes ahead of the British Foreign Office launching a new policy paper on the future of Nuclear weapons and creating conditions for their abolition following criticism about the UK’s controversial plans to upgrade Trident.
The latest opposition came last month from the former head of UK armed forces Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach, who denounced Trident and described it as ‘irrelevant’ and ‘completely useless’.
Robertson said other countries including the US and Russia have made ‘significant signals towards reducing nuclear tensions’, including President Barack Obama launching a review of the Pentagon’s controversial missile defence shield in central Europe.
“Scotland can help lift the nuclear shadow by deciding to end the presence of Trident weapons,” he told the conference that was attended by leading world legal experts including the former vice president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Judge Christopher Weeramantry.
Weeramantry spoke about the risks to Scotland by the continued stationing of nuclear weapons, saying the safety, health and welfare of the population of Scotland as well as the protection of the environment were the concerns of Scotland.
He noted the horrific birth defects which afflict newborns babies in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands caused by nuclear test explosions and said Scots were right to be deeply concerned about the effects on the ‘welfare of future generations’.
Although international relations is reserved to the UK Parliament, the former judge said the devolved Scottish Parliament must uphold international humanitarian and legal obligations which weapons of mass destruction are in breach of.
“Gross violations of international obligations are not excluded from the purview of the Scottish Parliament. The absence of power in the former area cannot cancel out its responsibilities in the latter,” he said.
The conference, organised by the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre and Trident Ploughshares, was held at the unique Dynamic Earth centre opposite the Scottish Parliament.