A row has erupted after a former defence secretary claimed that the rocket range on the Western Isles would close if Scotland votes for independence.
Labour’s Jim Murphy made the remarks about the site in Uist while on a visit to Benbecula yesterday.
About 200 people work at the range, which is run by the defence contractor Qinetiq and has faced the threat of closure in recent years.
Mr Murphy said that it had been “an incredibly close call” to save the jobs under a previous review which guaranteed the range’s future until 2016.
However, the SNP said the East Renfrewshire MP had a “cheek” to make the claims about the range given the threat to its future was while the party was in power at Westminster in 2009.
Mr Murphy said: “The range has been here for 40 years and can have a bright future.
“But the hard fact is that 95% of the range’s work is to support the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence and if we are no longer in the United Kingdom, the whole scenario changes.
“It was possible to make strategic arguments last time round when Uist was pitted against Aberforth in Wales. But if we were a separate state, the political arguments would become irresistible and the whole balance would shift.
“The MoD spends around £14 million a year to support the Uist range and it is not going to do that if we are a foreign country.”
Angus MacNeil, SNP MP for the Western Isles, hit back last night, saying: “This is yet more scaremongering from the No campaign.
“Jim Murphy has some cheek preaching to defence workers in the Western Isles.
“When Labour was in power almost 10,000 defence jobs disappeared in Scotland and if it hadn’t been for the fight put up by our community at the time, the Hebrides Range would have become another statistic.
“A Yes vote offers a bright future for defence jobs in Scotland – including the Uist rocket range, which is far more important to the defence of Scotland, the Nato alliance and the future of Europe than, say, weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde.”