THE ongoing war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East are highlighting how UK security is being compromised as a result of Brexit, former SNP MP Stephen Gethins has said.
The instability also shows that an urgent debate is needed about Scotland’s place in the world, according to Gethins, Professor of Practice in International Relations at the University of St Andrews.
“That can’t wait,” he told the Sunday National. “For those of us who believe in independence, there is a really important question about what our security responsibilities look like.”
Gethins said this was not only important for Scotland but also for neighbouring countries like Norway, Finland and Denmark who would not want Scotland’s security policy to compromise theirs.
“Something we need to consider is whether we take the security of our neighbours seriously,” he argued. “We do that by taking defence seriously and being committed to Nato and by thinking about how we can contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine in the aftermath of the war, as well as how we fit into European infrastructure.”
Gethins pointed out that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia nearly two years ago had caused a rethink about security in the rest of Europe.
“It also poses a challenge for those of us who believe in independence to take security and foreign policy seriously,” he said.
“Increasingly governments across Europe are seeing membership of the EU and membership of Nato as the twin pillars of their security and the UK is the only one that is moving away from that.
“Brexit makes us weaker because sitting outside the EU makes you more insecure. The EU is, at its heart, a peace project – it was built as one and is the most successful peace project on Earth and it will continue in that role because of its economic clout, security clout and soft power.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin will be watching the US elections to see if he can turn them to his advantage, Gethins said, and the outcome could raise further questions for European security.
“Increasingly there is a huge question about what European defence policy looks like if the US is becoming an unreliable partner,” he said.
The war in Ukraine has shown that security is not simply guns, tanks and military hardware but could also be measured in terms of food and energy security, he added.
“Now it is about trying to think about security in the round rather than the way it was traditionally thought of, which is simply being better armed than anyone else,” said Gethins.
“What is interesting about the Europeans is the way in which they are taking a more rounded approach to these things by taking into account food and energy security and post-conflict reconstruction.”
Gethins added that the UK could have contributed to this but chose not to be part of the security co-operation because of the Tories’ dogmatic approach to Brexit.
“That struck me as both unusual and unwise,” he said. “The UK could be important here but has chosen to take a step back which I think is very unfortunate.
“Being outside the EU is damaging for a large number of reasons but one of them is that the UK is no longer part of that really important security infrastructure. Increasingly the twin pillars of European security are the European Union and Nato.”
Gethins also said it would be naive to think that the UK establishment was not already considering where it could move the nuclear weapons based in Scotland in the event of independence.
“The Scottish Government wants to get rid of it as quickly and safely as possible which is the responsible thing to do,” he said. “In any case, Westminster is not going to want its nuclear weapons to be based in another country. They will already be considering options.”
