AN independent Scotland could raise £1.1 billion a year for the new state’s coffers by renting out the Faslane nuclear base to Nato, according to a leading defence analyst. Trevor Royle, a military historian and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has argued Scotland could follow Iceland which leased its air force base to America from 1949 to 2006 to generate revenue in the first decades of becoming independent from Denmark. Scotland’s two pro independence parties, the SNP and the Scottish Greens, are both opposed to nuclear weapons. With defence reserved to Westminster, they make the case that one of the benefits of independence is that it would give Scotland the power to remove nuclear weapons.
The National 13th Aug 2019 read more »