Murphy on the offensive over defence uncertainty

UK Political Editor

Monday 1 October 2012

THE SNP is 200 years out of date with its flagship proposal of Scottish independence in a modern world of inter- dependence, Jim Murphy will say today, as he claims Labour not the Conservatives or the Nationalists are the champions of Britain's Armed Forces.

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MICHAEL SETTLE

In his keynote address to conference, the Shadow Defence Secretary will call on the SNP to be honest with the people of Scotland about its plans for defence.

He will say: "As for the SNP, they want to debate how many questions there will be in the referendum because they can't decide on many of the answers about independence.

"It's time for them to come clean about their plans because, when it comes to defence, separation is a powerful idea from the 19th century ill-suited to the 21st century."In an interview, Mr Murphy also criticised the "enormous uncertainty" the prospect of Scottish independence was creating for Scottish troops and their families.However, the SNP hit back, accusing the Shadow Secretary of State of "rank hypocrisy" given he had overseen the loss of over 10,500 defence jobs in Scotland, the destruction of the Scottish regiments and con- tributed to a £5.6 billion defence underspend in Scotland."As Shadow Defence Secretary, Jim Murphy has completely let the Tory Government off the hook on the ongoing defence cuts in Scotland and the fact he chooses to spend his days off campaigning with the Tories shows exactly where his priorities lie," said Angus Robertson, the Nationalists' defence spokesman.In the interview, Mr Murphy was also was quoted as saying that if it was possible to expedite the return of 20,000 British troops from Germany to the UK, then a future Labour government would consider it, possibly basing all of them in Scotland.He said: "If that saved money and you could base those soldiers in Scotland, because it is important to have a military footprint across the UK, then certainly, as a Labour government we would definitely look at bringing the British army back from Germany sooner."In a separate development, the Ministry of Defence insisted there are no proposals to make further cuts to Armed Forces personnel beyond those announced last year following reports that 8000 soldiers, many in Afghanistan, are to be fast-tracked for redundancy. It also said there were no plans to change the retirement age of officers.

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Murphy on the offensive over defence uncertainty

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