LABOUR have been accused of "making the world ever more dangerous" over plans to buy a fleet of fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
On Wednesday, the UK Government announced it will buy 12 F35A jets, which can carry conventional weapons but can also be equipped with nuclear bombs.
Downing Street has called the move the "biggest strengthening" of Britain's posture "in a generation", while Keir Starmer said the UK "can no longer take peace for granted".
The Prime Minister is currently gathered with leaders of other Nato leaders – including US president Donald Trump – in the Hague, where they formally agreed a 5% of GDP defence and security spending pledge.
The move has drawn criticism, with the Scottish Greens arguing that it would "make the world ever more dangerous".
The party's co-leader, Patrick Harvie, accused Labour of supporting "unilateral rearmament" as he said the money could have been used to address "genuine security needs" and the cost of living crisis.
He told The National: “Nuclear weapons are incapable of discriminating between military and civilian targets. Their use would cause mass murder and environmental damage on a scale never seen before, and would amount to the biggest war crime in human history.
“They are also wildly expensive, having already cost the country hundreds of billions of pounds which could have been used to address the genuine security needs the world has, or on tackling the cost of living crisis that is plunging thousands of families into totally avoidable poverty.
“Labour used to tell us how responsible they were being, supporting multilateral disarmament. Now it’s clear that they want the opposite - unilateral rearmament. This will make the world ever more dangerous."
Meanwhile, the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) said the UK Government's decision "totally contradicts the spirit of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty" (NPT), an international treaty which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promotes disarmament.
The UK is one of 191 state parties signed up to the NPT, as is the United States.
The Scottish CND said that the planned system "locks in the UK's dependence on the USA".
"This is already obvious in our government’s muted response to the illegal bombing of Iran by the USA and of the multiple illegal acts of Israel in Gaza and Iran, our government’s failure to end all UK military support to the Israeli military or to ensure that UK manufactured arms are completely unavailable to Israeli use," a statement from CND said.
The group went on: "In Scotland, we already live with the fear of catastrophic nuclear accidents and the knowledge that our land and sea is used to threaten world destruction despite our wish to face the world in friendship.
"Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate, inhumane, genocidal and ecocidal, all of which contradicts the international laws that prohibit indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the infrastructures and ecosystems needed for life. This is not in our name."
South of the Border, defence minister Maria Eagle addressed the Commons on the matter in an urgent question on Wednesday afternoon.
Addressing the minister, Ellie Chowns, Green MP for North Herefordshire, echoed concerns that the decision would tie the UK further to a US administration which "is the very definition of a loose cannon".
"The prospect of UK fighter jets carrying Donald Trump's nuclear bombs cannot be anybody's vision of security," Chowns said.
"This decision flies in the face of our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, it ties us further into a US military that cannot even keep its own classified intelligence secure, it ties us further to a Trump administration that is the very definition of a loose cannon."
She asked the minister: "Given the inescapable truth that nuclear weapons make the world more dangerous, that normalising tactical weapons is incredibly reckless, how can she possibly justify this decision?"
Eagle responded by stating that the announcement was compliant with the NPT, to which Chowns could be seen shaking her head.
