Scots Independent
December 1995
Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland - First Published in November 1926
Cartoon - by Macdonald
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Labour and Tories squabble over Scotland
As Saint Andrew's Day drew nearer, there was a flurry of political
activity on the Scottish constitutional question again.
The so-called Constitutional Convention had
already pencilled in November 30th as a day of celebration of the
launch of the latest update of their Scottish Assembly blueprint.
Scottish Secretary Forsyth then announced that he would on that very
day also - with the Prime Minister's enthusiastic collusion -
unveil a rival plan for a powerhouse Scottish Grand Committee.
Up for a Plaid Cymru-SNP joint meeting, Dafydd Wigley expressed grave
doubts about Labour's commitment at all for any constitutional change
for either Scotland or Wales.
"I wouldn't trust Tony Blair as far as I could drop-kick him", he
told me. And his SNP counterpart Alex Salmond derided the notion
that any beefed-up Grand Committee could satisfy Scotland's demand
for real constitutional change. He told me
"John Major is suffering from a panic attack and he is right to
panic given the Tories' rock-bottom support in Scotland. However,
even the Prime Minister cannot seriously believe that a few
votes on the Scottish Grand Committee, which could then be over-ruled
by London, can satisfy the Scottish demand for real democratic
change.
"Scotland wants a Parliament of our own, not tinkering with
Westminster rule."
Mr Salmond said that, while this statement would cause consternation
among Tory diehards in Scotland, it was a refreshing admission
of reality:
"When even a leading political opponent is forced to concede that
Independence is "perfectly credible" then clearly the SNP holds a
very strong political hand. John Major is accepting the reality that
there are other highly successful independent nations in Europe of
Scotland's size."
"These countries are powering ahead economically while Scotland
stagnates under London rule. "
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Dumping Nukes off Rockall ?
Rockall Island lies approximately 200 miles from Skye. It rises 20 metres above
the sea-line and consists entirely of granite. A navigation beacon was installed on the
island in 1972 several years after Britain had annexed this remote uninhabitable tip of a
sunken mini-continent. Rockall Island sits on the Rockall Bank. Between the
Bank and the Outer Hebrides and the West Coast of Ireland lies the Rockall Trough more than 9000 feet deep. When the Beaufort's Dyke furore started up there was
reference to the dumping of nuclear waste "that Britain intended to dump far out in the
Atlantic Ocean''.
United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Authority accelerated a programme of dumping at sea in the '50s and '60s and until as
recently as 1982. High-grade waste was going into the Rockall Trough. Even bits of
nuclear submarines ended up there .
At the start of November, the potential "nuclear timebomb" condition of a
ship, The Lepse, in Murmansk on Russia's Arctic Coast, was
in the news. It had been used to hold amongst other things damaged nuclear fuel rods
from a Russian nuclear powered ice-breaker.
Britain's AEA Technology and France's state-owned nuclear company
SGN have contracted to examine the ship with a view to decommissioning it and "for
the safe removal of the nuclear wastes". Dounreay have sent out Mr Neil Buchan to use his expertise.
The 26-year old Polaris submarine HMS Renown, which had £200 million spent on a
refit three years ago, is stuck in Faslane on the Clyde having never been to sea since
August 1994. At Rosyth there are four decommissioned submarines. The Ministry of
Defence is content to have it there because eventually
Trident would take over. Broken-up nuclear submarines, waste from the reprocessing of American generated fuel rods at Dounreay, Russian "nuclear time-bomb" radio-active
material - all of these look destined for Scotland.
Several years ago, just before he died, Willie McRae suggested that there were
plans for Rockall which could spell disaster for Scotland but which were being considered as part of a world-wide solution to the uncontainable nuclear waste.
Current thinking is that Beaufort's Dyke is not the place for dumping but that the
Atlantic might be.
Stay alert, Scotland.
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