Isles SNP MP Angus MacNeil will vote against the renewal of Trident in the House of Commons on Monday (July 18th).

Mr MacNeil has consistently voted against spending on nuclear weapons during his career at Westminster and together with his SNP colleagues will oppose the replacement of the UK’s ageing nuclear weapons system.

He said: “A new poll shows more than half of people in Scotland are in favour of scrapping Trident and that view will be expressed by the SNP in the House of Commons on Monday.

“Rest assured as the island representative charged with representing the islands on this issue I will be voting against trident renewal.”

Mr MacNeil said the use of weapons of mass destruction was not just immoral but that replacement of the UK’s system would cost around  £167bn – an obscene amount of money for a country which has shown little economic recovery in the last eight years, incidentally unlike international friends and neighbours in Ireland and Iceland whose growth now dwarfs the UK.

Over and above the arguments against the replacement of Trident, he said the vote in the House of Commons on Monday was an example of ‘low politics’.

He said: “I have known for a while amongst colleagues from other parties at Westminster that this vote would happen not at a moment guided by the supposed defence considerations but to maximise embarrassment for The Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn who has always had a principled stance against nuclear weapons throughout his political life.

“At a time when the future constitutional arrangements for the UK are completely uncertain, and people have been subjected to an ideologically driven relentless and Tory austerity programme which shows no signs of abating; to contemplate spending an obscene amount of money on something which we hope would never be used, is absolutely unbelievable.”