UK ministers have been accused of burying their heads in the sand over how Scottish independence and the eurozone crisis could undermine UK security.
The National Security Council, which is chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron, has been told by a powerful committee of MPs and peers it lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with defence issues.
Established in 2010, the NSC is responsible for all aspects of the UK’s security. It meets weekly and includes ministers as well as military experts and was responsible for drawing up the National Security Strategy, which outlines how the UK would react in a crisis.
In an extremely critical report, the joint committee on the National Security Strategy, which includes MPs and peers, says it is ”extraordinary” that the NSC has not discussed the potential consequences of Scottish independence or another international economic crisis.
The committee, whose members include former MI5 director general Baroness Manningham-Buller, said the NSC’s oversight of security issues is ”not sufficiently broad or strategic.”
The report states: ”Scottish independence could have a range of impacts from potential disputes over the response to security threats and the division of resources, to questions about basing of forces and the future of the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
”The fact that the potential impact of Scottish independence was not brought to the NSC’s attention strengthens our concern that the horizon-scanning carried out on the NSC’s behalf is inadequate and that the NSC’s oversight of security issues is not sufficiently broad and strategic.”
According to the committee, the partial or total collapse of the euro as a currency has been a ”plausible scenario” since 2010 but the NSC has never discussed how it would cope with the aftermath, which the committee warns could include an outbreak of ”domestic social or political unrest” and a surge of economic migrants within the European Union.
”We believe that, even in 2010, the potential threat to UK security from a full, or partial, collapse of the eurozone was one of the plausible scenarios which a prudential national security risk assessment should have examined,” the report states.
”We call on the NSC to address the potential impacts on the UK and NATO (and how the government would respond) were this to happen, as a matter of urgency.”
The committee warns that further international economic instability could have effects on security that go ”beyond the UK being unable to defend itself” as other countries cut back on military spending and the number of economic migrants across the EU soars. The committee also states that the UK’s much-vaunted ”special relationship” with the US is likely to deteriorate as Europe becomes less important to American foreign policy.
”It raises fundamental questions if our pre-eminent defence and security relationship is with an ally who has interests which are increasingly divergent from our own,” it states. ”The government needs to decide if the UK will continue to be as involved in US military action as we have been in the past if the US focuses on Asia-Pacific.”
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The committee also criticises the National Security Strategy for having no influence on UK foreign policy when reacting to events such as the Arab Spring, However, it notes that the ministers in the NSC readily become sidetracked into crisis-management over issues such as Libya when they should be considering risks that are likely to emerge over the longer-term.
Committee chairwoman and former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said: ”A good strategy is realistic, is clear on the big questions and guides choices. This one does not. We need a public debate on the sort of country we want the UK to be in future and whether our ambitions are realistic, given how much we are prepared to spend.
”We welcome the setting up of the National Security Council, but it seems to have got sidetracked into short-term crisis management. The work it did in Libya was important, but ministers need to keep their eye on longer-term strategy and on risks emerging over the horizon. The NSC seems to be focusing too narrowly on international affairs. That leaves us vulnerable, as threats to our security do not just come from abroad.”
SNP defence spokesman Angus Robertson said: ”This report underlines that Whitehall doesn’t think about Scotland and defence very much in any constitutional scenario. We already know that the Ministry of Defence has been happy to make disproportionate cuts to conventional defence in Scotland in recent years and have left major capability gaps.
”Given that Scottish taxpayers currently contribute more than £3 billion a year to the UK MoD but only £2 billion is spent in Scotland, perhaps Whitehall mandarins are keen not to highlight the underspend.
”A tangible benefit of independence is that our governments will be able to work together directly on conventional defence and security matters.
”This will be a huge improvement on the present situation, which is not fit for purpose. The optimal arrangement for Scotland is to make defence decisions closer to home as it is bound to be better than leaving it to Westminster, which has repeatedly made such bad decisions for defence in Scotland.”
However, military historian and analyst Chris Brown said neither the break-up of the United Kingdom nor the end of the euro would harm UK security.
He said: ”The euro is a political institution rather than an economic one and as such it will be protected by politicians. Although it is likely that Greece and possibly Portugal will have to leave the euro at some point, the chief partners – Germany, France, the Benelux countries – will stick with it.
”None of that has any bearing whatsoever on Britain’s capacity to defend herself. Anything that has an impact on Britain’s economy may limit our capacity for waging wars abroad, but since we are not under threat of invasion, our defence is largely conducted very effectively by the police and the intelligence and security services. The armed forces are primarily trained, equipped and deployed for intervention overseas, not for the defence of the realm.
”The same applies to the Scottish referendum. Independence for Scotland would have much less real impact on the defence capabilities of the Remaining United Kingdom than the current round of proposed defence cuts.
”Arguably, the fact that a Holyrood government would take responsibility for Scottish defence would actually reduce the burdens of the RUK Army, Navy and Air Force.”
Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire