From the raised saddle of his tall bike “Panther” — a refugee from the HS2 protests between London and Birmingham — looks away from the vibrant, if ramshackle, caravans at Faslane peace camp towards a slate-grey military vessel on the Gare Loch.
“It is incredible to think that there are actual nuclear bombs here and this is ground zero,” he says. “That if another country decides to target the UK, then this is where they are going to come.”
Panther, one of three residents at the camp, began his campaigning with Extinction Rebellion. “We are in the middle of a climate crisis: we should be focusing on tackling that and on going carbon neutral by 2030 rather than funnelling billions of pounds into Trident,” he says.
To others, though, Faslane, or HM Naval Base Clyde — home to the UK’s four nuclear missile-carrying Vanguard submarines — is the lifeblood of the local economy. Figures vary from survey to survey but, in 2017, the Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathclyde University found that the Ministry of Defence employed 4,700 people in Argyll and Bute, 34 per cent of the total local jobs and the highest concentration in Scotland.
With a new generation of Trident missiles agreed in 2016 and Faslane in the process of becoming the single home of the operational UK submarine force, the economic importance of the base is growing. That’s before you factor in Boris Johnson’s decision to lift the cap on nuclear warheads from 180 to 260, reversing plans to reduce the stockpile.
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The strength of feeling around the UK nuclear deterrent makes Faslane a tricky election issue for all parties competing for the Dumbarton constituency in which the base is situated.
The SNP wants to abolish Trident and so has previously been seen as a threat to its future. Jackie Baillie, Labour MSP for Dumbarton since 1999, however, has supported its renewal, a stance that put her at odds with Scottish party policy during the 2016 Holyrood election.
Back then, she held onto the seat with a majority of only 109, making it a prime target for the SNP this time. Toni Giugliano, the SNP candidate, knows that to win over voters he needs to sell a vision of Faslane as a thriving non-nuclear base in an independent Scotland. “There has long been a false narrative that the SNP would close Faslane,” he says, “but why would we want to shut a base which is so strategically important in terms of its geography? We are saying that, in an independent Scotland, it would be the tri-services HQ of our armed forces, which would mean thousands of personnel based in the area on a permanent basis.”
Dumbarton is a diverse seat split between two local authorities: Argyll and Bute and West Dunbartonshire. Its two biggest towns, Dumbarton and Helensburgh, have very different demographics. Dumbarton has significant unemployment and deprivation. It is a traditional Labour territory but, as with many such heartlands, the party’s one-time supporters have become increasingly disaffected.
On Glasgow Road, leading into the town, every lamppost bears a red Vote Labour placard; there is not a splash of yellow. Yet, laden with groceries, Ellen Ferguson, 32, who worked on a zero-hours contract but is now unemployed, says she doesn’t know anyone who isn’t voting SNP. “It’s not that I think the SNP have done such a great job, I mean look at the high street — even without Covid half the shops are shut,” she says. “However, I do believe Scotland should be in charge of its own affairs because Westminster doesn’t know what goes on up here.”
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Helensburgh, with its pretty, blustery waterfront, is more affluent and has benefited from its proximity to the base. In the Helensburgh and Lomond South by-election last month Gemma Penfold, the Tory candidate and a dance school owner, won a council seat with 51 per cent of the vote. Some residents suggest that Baillie benefits from tactical voting.
Today, as everywhere else, the town’s pubs and restaurants are shut, but in non-Covid times they are thronged with visiting submariners. Its housing market, too, is bolstered by the base and its guesthouses fill up with defence contractors.
The SNP contests the scale of employment that the nuclear deterrent provides, claiming only 520 civilian jobs are directly linked to Trident. “What we have at the moment is workers who are there certain days and then go back to wherever else they are based in the UK,” Giugliano says. He believes the expertise already in the constituency would make it the natural location for a Scottish Ministry of Defence, bringing civil service jobs. “If you look at naval bases across the EU, how many have nuclear weapons?” he asks. “Without them, you could repurpose the Clyde and look at industries such as ship-building or renewable technologies.”
Last week, while Giugliano was leafleting, Baillie, who is deputy leader of Scottish Labour, was busily preparing for the party’s manifesto launch tomorrow. She tops Labour’s West Scotland list so, even if she loses her seat, she is likely to remain at Holyrood. Last week on Twitter she stressed her commitment to the Vale of Leven Hospital as well as her role in helping to resolve industrial disputes at the base. “Defence jobs are the backbone of our community. I’ll continue to defend these highly skilled well-paid jobs and the local people who work here,” she wrote.
Back at the peace camp, Willemien Hoogendoorn, 58, is showing off a cherry tree planted by survivors of Hiroshima in 1985, and a mountain ash sapling planted three weeks ago to commemorate those who died as a result of the detonation of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands.
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She has been arrested at least three times while blockading the base and stages a weekly vigil at the north gate. Like Giugliano she has little time for the argument that Trident is necessary for the economy. “Look around: this area is beautiful,” she says, gesturing towards the mountains and loch. “It should be good for tourism, it should be booming.”