Secret US diplomatic cables scoffing at the SNP’s commitment to ditch Trident after independence have been attacked by former first minister Alex Salmond. Internal memos from the US Embassy in London to the State Department in Washington in the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014 dismiss the Scottish Government’s plan to ban nuclear weapons. The cables, just declassified under US freedom of information law and released exclusively to the Sunday Herald, label SNP nuclear policy as “rhetoric” and “a marquee issue”. An anti-Trident motion in the Scottish Parliament is described as “largely symbolic” and “a campaign tactic”. The revelations have prompted an angry response from Salmond, who headed Holyrood at the time.
Sunday Herald 21st Aug 2016 read more »