Who has control of the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons and delivery systems? The suggested takeover by United States' private companies of the Scottish submarine bases and warhead storage plus their servicing facilities in Scotland seems to hand over what little control our government has of these weapons to not just he United States government, but to a US multinational with very different operational criteria, not to mention democratic control, from that of a sovereign government.
A local member of Parliament is to make a rarest of appearances in his workplace today to appeal for the servicing of the flightless aircraft carriers to be carried out in this, his, area of Scotland. A servicing contract that runs for half a century. The appeal will be cast in terms of jobs for the local boys, but there is to wonder if this isn't really an attempt to channel profitable contracts to American armaments makers, to add to their already too extensive presence in our defence sites.
At least the contracts going to the French bases and servicing facilities would leave more of this very sensitive armaments area in European hands and under a European democratic governmental control, where such issues should be.
As for who has control over the UK's nuclear weapons, it is a pity that the chain of command is not in the least clear, certainly nothing like as clear as it is for the French nuclear deterrent.
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4 comments:
EUReferendum is in no doubt who is in control - the Euroslime. See
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/aliens-take-over.html
"We are in the grip of the euroslime. Democracy has ceased to function in this country - where is the democratic mandate for a merger of the Armed Forces with France and the rest of the euroweenies? "
It isn't the European Union who takes it though, Raven; it's our lot who keep giving it away. No-one's forcing us. They declined to let us join twice, after all.
I'm reading 'The Defence of the Realm; the authorised history of MI5' at the moment. What was going ON in the Foreign office in the 'thirties, with their refusals to believe the security services and their determination to see nothing but good in Germany, Italy and France?
This is nothing to do with the French, really; it's the first open emergence of the EU navy and army.
Naturally our forces will be amongst the first to be incorporated, as they are the largest.
A secondary aim, now far advanced, is to ensure that the UK can never again do anything by itself. Hence French fighters for our carriers, hence all ammunition comes from Belgium, hence no doubt many other hamperings and obstructions that I am not aware of.
But despair is a sin.
And not just any old sin, Yacht, but a sin against the Holy Ghost; bishop's confession for you - if you give way - though the occasion of sin is hardly of your making.
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