Removal of UK’s Trident Nuclear Deterrent Could Take Years

Douglas Chapman, a Scottish lawmaker in the UK lower house said that he would back the immediate safe removal of Trident, but the procedures would take several years.

EDINBURGH (Sputnik) – It would take independent Scotland years to safely remove the Trident nuclear deterrent, a Scottish lawmaker in the UK lower house told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"I would back the immediate safe removal of Trident, but the procedures would take several years. It would be for the UK Government to decide if the system would be better built from scratch and decommissioned rather than moved," Douglas Chapman said.

The UK parliament backed the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system on Monday by a margin of 472 votes to 117, despite 58 of Scotland’s 59 lawmakers in the House of Commons voting against.

Angus Robertson, SNP's parliamentary group leader in Westminster, warned that a "day is fast approaching" when the Scottish nation will hold a referendum to leave the United Kingdom, after they were outvoted in the EU referendum and again in the Trident vote.

Douglas Chapman, SNP’s representative for Dunfermline and West Fife in the Commons, said that reconfiguring the Faslane nuclear base in Scotland into a conventional headquarters for a Scottish Navy would also take time.

"The SNP does not believe there's any use for nuclear weapons in the world and would like to see them completely eradicated," Chapman added.

He argued there were only eight countries with nuclear weapons, out of a global community of around 200.

The Trident nuclear weapons system, based on Scotland’s west coast, is carried by four British submarines armed with eight missiles, each carrying 40 nuclear warheads. At least one British submarine is at sea continuously carrying the nuclear arsenal.