Ian Murray on Trident, 12 May 2015

The MP for Edinburgh South, Ian Murray, expressed opposition to the proposed renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system several times during the recent election campaign. For example at the Fairmilehead hustings he described Trident as "morally wrong" and said he wouldn't vote for renewal (from 1hr 7 min in the video). At the hustings in Gilmerton he was pressed by the Green candidate Phyl Meyer to indicate if he'd vote against and he said that he would. Below is the transcript of part of an interview he gave shortly after the election in which he was asked again if he'd vote against renewal and if he'd try to persuade his party to change its position.

Please sign our petition asking him to vote against renewal of the Trident system during this parliament.

Transcribed from BBC iplayer.

12/5/2015

Good Morning Scotland

From 1hr.10

You’ve told us where you might work in opposition to the SNP on Full Fiscal Autonomy but one area where surely you can work with them in harmony is on the renewal of Trident because you have said that that is something you would oppose. Are you going to try to persuade your Labour colleagues to look at this in the same way as you do?

Well the Labour party policy is quite clear on Trident and that’s to support the renewal it’s not an open secret it’s very much an open secret I have for many, many years been against the renewal of Trident we will be having those discussions as we go through the renewal of the party in terms of what our agenda will be and we’ll cross those bridges when we come to it. All these discussions happen. We’re only a few hours, a few days after the close of the polls in a huge general election. Let’s just take some time to reflect. Take some time to rebuild the party and just take some time to see what happened during the general election and all these things will come to the fore and be part of these discussions The MSP group met yesterday with the leadership and had a long meeting about the general election so let’s just see what happens

But would you like to see your colleagues at Westminster come on board with your position and not renew Trident?

Well there’s a whole number of positions. We’re a broad church of a party where the Labour movement across the UK and across Scotland involves the affiliates it involves the Trade Union movement it involves a very active Labour party membership.

Absolutely, but you’re on the front bench aren’t you? You have a strong voice as a frontbench spokesman, as a member of the shadow cabinet. At those shadow cabinet meetings will you be arguing for the Labour party to shift its position and not renew Trident?

Well Gary at the start of this interview you were implying I didn’t have a strong voice now you’re implying I do have a strong voice. Let’s just take some time to reflect I’ve been in this job now for a little less than a day I think it’s important that we look at what the general election threw up we reflect on what it threw up and we come to a conclusion on how we renew the Labour party and the Scottish Labour party because the bottom line is here that the UK and Scotland needs an incredibly strong Labour party to oppose to scrutinise and put forward a positive agenda of hope and aspiration for both Scotland and the United Kingdom and that’s the direction we’ll all be going in and that’s the direction and discussion we’ll be having at shadow cabinet

But when it comes to collective responsibility within the Shadow Cabinet when the issue of Trident goes before a vote in the House of Commons what do you do?

Well we’ll have a look at that when that discussion actually happens.

It’s a point of principle surely for you?

We had a cabinet meeting yesterday at which we discussed various items and the Scottish group met yesterday and discussed various items mainly concentrating around the general election and analysing what was there but I’m optimistic for the future that we can put a positive programme together for hope and aspiration

Well I’m sure that’s the case but I’m asking you quite specifically about the renewal of Trident I wonder what you do given that you have said publically that you’re against the renewal of Trident. But there is this issue of collective responsibility within the Shadow cabinet. What do you do if there is a vote in the Commons?

We’ll cross that bridge, we haven’t had those discussions yet.

It’s not about discussions within the Labour it’s about your position. It’s not about discussions within the Labour party. What do you do if there’s a vote on this in the Commons?

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. When we’ve had those discussions.

So you may not vote against it?

Gary I’ve said quite clearly and publically to both to my local electorate and others that I wouldn’t support the renewal of Trident. My position, my personal position hasn’t changed and my personal position is well-known but the important thing is here that we reflect on the result of the general election on Thursday we come forward with a positive programme for change and we oppose and scrutinise with every single fibre that we’ve got this Conservative government and we defend Scotland’s interests against full fiscal autonomy.

Before and After the Independence Referendum

Before	After
The Constitution The three main UK party leaders promise “extensive new powers”, described variously as close to a “federal state”, “super devo max”, and “home rule” by leading campaigners for a No vote [More].	The Constitution The Smith commission excludes key powers from its final report after pressure from the UK cabinet, including the ability to vary Universal Credit. The recommendations would leave 87% of welfare spending in Scotland under Westminster control.
The NHS Better Together dismiss concerns that Scotland’s spending on health will be affected by UK policy decisions including commercialisation and privatisation of the NHS. These concerns are “the biggest lie of the referendum campaign” [More].	The NHS Audit Scotland states that up to 2019, ‘Reductions in spending at a UK level will affect the level of funding available in Scotland. The Scottish Government will need to plan for health spending within an overall reducing budget.’
Oil Scotland’s oil resources are deemed to last only another 15 to 35 years.Setting up a sovereign oil wealth fund is dismissed as ‘make believe’. [More]	Oil A ‘significant oil strike’ of 50 million barrels is announced in the central North Sea while technological advances are reported that could “add decades to the lifespan of oil reserves’.George Osborne suggests a sovereign shale gas wealth fund for Northern England.
Shipbuilding Better Together claims that MoD contracts to build warships in Scotland would be lost under independence because it is ‘inconceivable’ that such contracts would be awarded to a foreign country [More].	Shipbuilding The head of the Royal Navy admits that the MoD has considered cancelling a £4bn contract to build the new Type 26 frigates on the Clyde to get them built in France instead.
Immigration Ed Miliband and others on the pro-Union side claim they would have to establish border controls should an independent Scotland adopt a different immigration policy from the rest of the UK’s.	Immigration University and business leaders call for devolved immigration powers, arguing it is 'already proved that it's possible to have a difference…bringing demographic and economic benefit to Scotland with no impact on the rest of the UK'

Constitution

"The Vow", signed by David Cameron, Nick Cleg and Ed Miliband promised "extensive new powers" (David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg sign joint historic promise which guarantees more devolved powers for Scotland and protection of NHS if we vote No, Daily Record 16/9/14).

The former Prime Minister Gordon Brown stated "“We’re going to be, within a year or two, as close to a federal state as you can be in a country where one nation is 85 per cent of the population" (Gordon Brown backs federalism in event of No vote, The Scotsman, 15/8/14).

When asked "You are offering, effectively, the voters a chance to vote Yes or for devo max?", the Better Together campaign leader, Alistair Darling MP, answered "Yes" (interview with Jackie Bird, BBC Scotland 9/9/14).

George Galloway MP, who was nominated as one of the Better Together representatives at the largest public debate of the entire campaign, told 7,500 young voters "never mind devo max, there is Super Devo on the table now" ("The big debate", BBC Scotland 11/9/14).

The cross-party Smith Commission was convened by the UK government to recommend changes to the powers of the Scottish government following the referendum. Their recommendations were published on the 27th of November (Smith Commission report). The BBC reported that key powers were removed two days before publication after a meeting of the UK cabinet (Smith Commission 'dropped welfare proposals', BBC Scotland news website, 28/11/14).

Analysis by Nicola McEwan of Edinburgh University concludes that "Around 87% of Scottish welfare spending, including pensions, child and family benefits, tax credits and almost all working-age benefits, will remain reserved to Westminster after the new settlement is implemented."(Advocates of welfare devolution will be disappointed by Smith Report, Future of the UK and Scotland blog, Centre for Constitutional Change 27/11/14).

The NHS

The Labour MSP Neil Findlay described concerns over future NHS funding as "the biggest lie of the campaign" (Scottish NHS becomes key issue in independence as doctors debate future, The Guardian, 15/9/14).

Audit Scotland publishes a report stating that over the period to 2019, ‘Reductions in spending at a UK level will affect the level of funding available in Scotland. The Scottish Government will need to plan for health spending within an overall reducing budget.’(NHS in Scotland 2013/14 Audit Scotland)

NHS Scotland is currently funded through the Barnett formula which is based on current public expenditure in England. Following the Autumn Statement, the Office of Budget Responsibility "estimated around £23 billion of cuts by the end of the next Parliament, which would see public spending fall to 35.2% of GDP in 2019-2020, taking it below the previous post-war lows reached in 1957-58 and 1999-00". (Autumn Statement 2014: Osborne's Cuts 'Will See Public Spending Fall To Lowest Level In 80 Years'. Huffington Post, 3/12/14)

Meanwhile, privatisation of the NHS South of the border continues apace. Richard Branson’s Virgin Care Ltd proudly boasts of the ‘over 230 NHS services’ it provides, all of which are in England (http://www.virgincare.co.uk/). For example, Virgin Care Ltd has been short-listed for a £1.22bn ten-year contract to provide cancer and end of life treatment in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent (Private companies on Staffordshire cancer contract shortlist, BBC Midlands news, 6/11/14).

‘Privatisation will always be an option for health provision’ says Simon Stevens, Chief Executive NHS England. Department of Health figures show that non-NHS healthcare providers received more than £10bn of the £100bn budget in 2013 (The Guardian, NHS boss Simon Stevens defends privatisation, 23/10/14).

Oil

Opponents of independence claim that Scotland’s oil resources will last only another 15 to 35 years (Sir Ian Wood: 15 years of oil left before independent Scotland spending cuts, Daily Telegraph, 10/8/14)

A month after the referendum, BP and GDF Suez announce ‘a significant oil strike’ in the central North Sea East of Aberdeen. The new Vorlich field could yield 50 million barrels (BP and GDF Suez discover new North Sea oil field, BBC Scotland Business, 23/10/14).

Five days after the referendum, scientists at Heriot Watt University announce a technological breakthrough in developing clean and cheap methods to maximise extraction from existing oil fields. It is claimed this could be "game changer" for the North sea and extend the life of fields by decades (New technology 'could extend lifespan of North Sea oil reserves', STV News North, 24/9/14

The Scottish government proposal to set up a sovereign wealth fund in an independent Scotland based on profits from oil is dismissed as ‘make believe’. Opponents claim that it's unwise to invest when there is a budget deficit (Better Together leaders warn that the SNP's oil cash plans won't work, Daily Record, 25/5/14)

In his Autumn statement the UK Chancellor George Osborne announces "a new Sovereign Wealth Fund for the North of England so that the shale gas resources of the North are used to invest in the future of the North". This is at a time of austerity when the annual UK budget deficit exceeds £100bn (Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement 2014 speech, Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement 2014 speech, 2/12/14).

Ian Bell of The Herald discusses the politics of falling oil prices [here].

Shipbuilding

Scottish Labour party leader Johan Lamont argued it would be "inconceivable [UK] contracts for defence work will be let outside the United Kingdom" to be built on the Clyde in the event of Scottish independence (Scottish independence: 'Yes' vote means loss of shipbuilding jobs, says Lamont, BBC Scotland Politics, 23/6/14)

The UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, implied that Clyde contracts would be dependent on Scotland remaining in the UK, stating: "UK warships are only built in UK shipyards" (Scottish independence: MoD announces new £348m shipbuilding contract for Clyde, Daily Telegraph, 12/8/14)

Admiral George Zambellas, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff of the Royal Navy revealed on the 12th of November that the Ministry of Defence was considering abandoning its promise to build the new type 26 frigates on the Clyde. The MoD "confirmed that the First Sea Lord had reflected the MoD’s current position" (MoD considers pulling £4bn Clyde frigate contract, The Scotsman, 12/11/14).

Immigration

Ed Miliband and others on the pro-Union side claimed they would have to establish border controls should an independent Scotland adopt a different immigration policy from the rest of the UK’s (We'll put guards on Scottish border: Ed Miliband reveals incendiary plan as Yes camp leads for first time in shock new pollMail on Sunday, 7/9/14).

Universities Scotland and several business organisations including the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Institute of Directors Scotland and Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI), as well as Trades Unions, all sign an open letter calling for the devolution of some immigration powers. Professor Pete Downes argues ""Scotland has already proved that it's possible to have a difference in immigration policy, bringing demographic and economic benefit to Scotland with no impact on the rest of the UK. Fresh Talent was a big success and we're looking to the Smith Commission, and to the UK Government, to give Scotland this opportunity again" (Universities and business unite in call for Smith Commission to seize the opportunity to craft an immigration policy that meets Scotland's needs, Universities Scotland, 17/11/14)

Welcome to the new website for Yes Morningside, the community group working for a Yes vote in Edinburgh's most independent-minded village.

Get in touch for more information on all aspects of the independence referendum, whether you're Yes, No or still considering.

If you are a convinced Yes voter, we need you! We have plenty to do and time is running out. Please get in touch (YesMorningside@gmail.com) or come to one of our canvassing sessions to help out.

A tribute to and from the canvassers of ward 10, Edinburgh South

By Yes Morningside, 19th September 2014

According to Brian McNeill there are no gods in this infuriating little country and precious few heroes. Well we’ve learned a lot over the past year and it turns out there are rather more heroes than we thought.

We worked in one of the very toughest places in Scotland. We had to get through many, many hard Nos to reach those soft Nos and Yesses and the precious undecideds where we could make a difference by listening and talking. And to get them we had to canvass in the tenements, many hundreds of them. Not one, but two solid doors just to reach the ambiguity of the public/private space on inside doorsteps, dark, cold and with awful acoustics, where no-one feels completely at home because our society of individuals has lost the feeling of ownership of communal space. We fought the general perception that we don’t do politics ourselves any more in this country, that it’s a spectator sport, played like football on the TV with a background of green leather instead of grass. The tenements of Marchmont and Bruntsfield, Merchiston and Morningside showed us rocky barriers, physical and psychological.

And we did it. The quality we needed was pure, bloody-minded naïvity, for whom one of our heroes should take almost all the credit. No professional outfit would have contemplated such a strategy, and they didn’t. Back in February we got tired of waiting for the call to come canvassing so we met in the pub and organized it ourselves. We pushed through those barriers to have those seven thousand conversations, more than any other Edinburgh ward. We offered many more the opportunity to take part in our grand historic conversation, on the way to our one day of power, but many refused.

And we and our children and our partners suffered for our naïvity. We had nothing to offer but blood, sweat and stairs. We were patronised by Tory after Tory. We were made to feel small at every fifth door, as if we were up to something dirty and unseemly. We saw that look in many eyes, that slight stiffening, almost imperceptible but as clear as an X in a box, of an underlying feeling of shock that we actually exist. We were told there would be a war. That we were doing a terrible thing. We were told to keep our hands off their pensions. We were told very simply, and very politely, that “I don’t talk to Yes-minded people”. We were told that we are a cult, the victims of neurological reprogramming, in as genial and inoffensive tones as can be found in Morningside. Some of our targets when they saw us coming banged the doors and sang “Land of Hope and Glory” at the top of their nationalist lungs. The chief of the opposing campaign is of our community. He agreed with an interviewer that we are the kind of nationalists to be characterised by the Nazi slogan “Blut and Boden”. Our Morningside organizer is an anti-Zionist Jew who has put as much sweat into fighting ethnic nationalism for his Palestinian friends as he did into this campaign. You may imagine how he felt at that.

There were casualties. We lost some of our best people to back pain, rheumatoid problems, simple emotional exhaustion. One of the very best was immobile and fought the fight just from her desk in a ground floor Marchmont Flat, doing the vital work of data entry. We tried to bring the spirit of the campaign to her.

But there was pleasure too. We saw inside all those magnificent structures we pass every day, the monumental tenements of Victorian Edinburgh. We were touched by the support we got from Wales, from England, from Poland and further. We had the shameful pleasure of imagining the effect of our banners on our opponents. And some of our banners were something special. And some of our opponents were such as you’d like to annoy.

We brought the most exciting of political times to almost every doorstep and we found thousands willing to talk. We reinvented politics. The chat did not resemble the debate fed to us on TV. We were asked questions we could answer and questions we could not. We were honest. We admitted it and we stayed up late, many nights, researching HGV licenses, the common agricultural policy, the UN convention on the law of the sea and the exact balance of Research council spending vs tax revenues and numbers of Scottish researchers. We became experts and neglected our jobs. The answers went out in hand-addressed envelopes. We will never know their fate. We passed our victims on the streets and we still do. But we don’t know what they’re thinking and we never will.

On trips to other parts of the city we were ranted at by the BNP. And we saw defeated communities and defeated people. We are haunted by what we saw and our tears today are for people whose suffering is not self-inflicted, like our own.

Our opponents proclaimed their fierce pride in their “Scottishness”. We don’t know what that means, but our pride is quieter. We are proud beyond words of the 20 or so ordinary folk who showed absolute indefatigability, and who would have won a landslide if only a couple of hundred thousand more of our compatriots could have had the privilege of a conversation with them. They know who they are.

Why did we do it? Only for the one precious thought that we can have on our deathbeds: that we did what we could for a better future. This is our prize and all the lies and abuse will not ever take that away from each one of us.

Ivan

Local campaign

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