For Peace!

In the 1970s NATO started looking at the Scottish Hebrides in its posture against the Soviet Union. The MoD proposed that Stornoway Airport be expanded into a first-order base for NATO aircraft. The runways, equipment and personnel would more than double the town’s population. Local concern prompted the Labour Party to hold a public meeting in October 1979. This became the founding meeting of the Keep Nato Out (KNO) campaign. KNO successfully established a solid front of local opposition which included political, social, cultural, Gaelic language, environmental and religious interests. Celebrity support ranged from EP Thomson to filmmaker Peter Watkins who highlighted KNO in his epic international documentary, The Journey. Marches, demos, and blockades of the airport were paralleled by arts and media events, press cartoons, posters, photography and other agitprop. KNO kept up pressure in the 80s and went on to win a Public Enquiry but this was over-ruled by the British government on the grounds of national strategic necessity. With the collapse of the USSR however, NATO’s plans to militarise the Hebrides lapsed. The islands were left with an enormous runway for handling routine domestic flights and a safe haven for transatlantic passenger jets in distress, rather than being a launch pad for nuclear bombers.