DEFENCE Secretary John Healey has been urged to break his silence and intervene with Scottish Labour amid concerns that one of the party’s MPs may have put the UK’s national security “at risk”.
The SNP have written to the Labour Cabinet Secretary saying a full inquiry is “imperative” to understand how the actions of Joani Reid may have “undermined” the security of the Trident nuclear missile system.
Reid was voluntarily suspended from Labour last month after her husband, David Taylor, was arrested under suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, namely China. Reid stressed that “no accusations have been against me” and said she had “done nothing wrong”.
In the weeks after her husband’s arrest, it emerged that the captain of one of the UK's four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines had left his role after an inappropriate relationship with Reid.
The MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven further resigned from the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme (AFPS) – which gives parliamentarians experience of the UK military – after a separate incident in which she allegedly got "extremely drunk" at Faslane, flirted with a second male officer, and swore at a female one.
In a letter sent to Defence Secretary John Healey, seen by The National and dated April 7, SNP MP Kirsty Blackman wrote: “As you will be aware, calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the security of Trident have been made following revelations that a Scottish Labour Party MP was reported to counterterrorism police over her behaviour with senior naval officers at Faslane.
“The Scottish Labour Party has demonstrated an inability to comprehend the seriousness of the situation as alarming reports continue to detail that our national security was potentially put at risk through the behaviour of one their MPs, Joani Reid, who is also married to a man arrested on suspicion of being a Chinese spy.
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“It is for that reason, that I write to you – as Defence Secretary – for your intervention to uncover the scale of the scandal which has impacted the UK nuclear fleet.
“Given the Scottish Labour Party refuse to answer what they knew and when, it is now imperative we have an inquiry to ensure the national security of these islands is not further undermined in light of these alarming revelations.”
Previously, when the Financial Times first reported Reid’s inappropriate interactions with the submarine captain, Conservative shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns called for Healey to explain publicly when he first knew about the matter and why the officer had only left his role after the media learned of it.
Healey has claimed that the SNP are a threat to UK national security due to their opposition to nuclear weapons.
It is understood that although the individual who had inappropriate relations with Reid is no longer in command of a Vanguard-class submarine – one of four in the UK navy which can launch Trident nuclear weapons – this is not due to any disciplinary action or security concerns and they remain in the armed forces.
The Ministry of Defence is understood to have investigated internally, without ministerial involvement, and that security checks and mitigations have been put in place.
A Royal Navy spokesperson said: “The security of the nuclear deterrent is our highest priority, and we have robust processes in place to protect the security of our people and capabilities.
“We will not comment on individual cases.”
READ MORE: Joani Reid must step down as MP over nuke captain scandal, SNP say
Previously, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said that Reid should resign her seat at Westminster if there is “any hint of any wrongdoing at all”.
He said: “I think it’s important to stress, as far as my current understanding is, that whilst her partner is subject to a Metropolitan Police investigation, it’s not yet widened beyond that, but there are still issues of concern at relations here, which is why there is the separate, independent governance investigation.
“If there is any hint of any wrongdoing at all, of them, then this person should not be a Scottish Labour MP and they shouldn’t be an MP, but I am not going to prejudge that investigation."
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