Thread by @MartinJKeatings

The policy of the greens that they would seek to use the powers of holyrood to get rid of trident is complete and utter nonsense. There's only one way not to have trident in Scotland and that is NOT TO BE in a nuclear state like the UK.

Trident can only be removed from our shores by one means - independence followed by a direct order to the UK Government to remove its nuclear garbage from next to our second-largest city with a deadline after which we'll dump it on WM's front porch.

This is not an issue like fracking where you can simply block it by declaring a moratorium. These weapons are already there and good luck trying to rid Scotland of them under the UK Government.

The only way to rid ourselves of them is to make the entirety of Scotland and its waters, the remit of our national parliament in Edinburgh. Then it's not: "Excuse me? can you remove....", instead it becomes: "Hey! You've got until x date to remove..."

If the greens get long enough to go through a time-consuming process of removal of trident under devolved competencies then Holyrood as a whole has failed in its duty. Why? Because we should already have voted for independence by that point!

In which case, removal by means other than independence would be unnecessary. I'm just saying!

And you know, quite reasonably I think, I'm getting just a bit tired of the touchy feely approach to Westminster on the matter of trident. Remove these weapons of mass destruction which make us a direct target for attack...

...and if the ever went wrong, would contaminate nearly half of the Scottish population in only a few days or we'll....or we'll....or we'll get really annoyed and maybe try to find a law that might get you to stop for 20 minutes.

No. Nuclear weapons = a fundamental threat to the welfare of every person in Scotland. Such a big threat that the MOD deemed it too dangerous to put it in England. When that's the case, the approach is different...

...trident wasn't put in Scotland because of convenience, it was put in Scotland because a bunch of members of the military and the UK Government deemed the lives of ordinary Scotland as less than...

...its a calculation that lives lost in Scotland isn't as big a deal as lives lost down south. That makes this, not a dispute about weapons of mass destruction, but instead an argument between...

...those who think any human life is sacred vs lives just being a cost of doing business. Ask Boris, he'd probably say that by strict utilitarian calculus a nuke set off in Strathclyde is better than a nuke set off in croydon.

Works the opposite directions with pounds according to him though.