Scottish independence could break a “logjam” in the global effort to wipe out nuclear weapons, MSPs have heard — if politicians keep their pledges.

The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s John Ainslie sought to reassure backbenchers on Holyrood’s Europe and external relations committee over the SNP government’s plans to remove nukes from Scottish soil.

The party has vowed to carry out the policy if independence is secured in September’s referendum, but has said it would also seek membership of US-led military alliance Nato.

Critics both inside and outside the party have voiced concerns over Nato’s policy of "nuclear sharing," which sees the United States actively distribute nuclear weapons stockpiles among other member nations.

Mr Ainslie told MSPs yesterday there was now “a logjam in disarmament, and a great deal of resentment around the world about that.”

The "P5" group of major nuclear powers — France, Russia, China, Britain and the US — were routinely colluding to effectively block further progress, Mr Ainslie said, despite the passage of UN resolutions calling for “complete elimination” of nuclear weapons every year since the organisation was founded.

A summit on the issue in Mexico earlier this year had seen more than 140 nations attend, he said.

“I think if Scotland was independent and possessed its nuclear disarmament policy, yes, there would be resentment in some quarters — but also a lot of other states would welcome it.”

Mr Ainslie said his organisation remained opposed to joining Nato, but it did not necessarily follow that Scotland would be barred from doing so. The Spanish government had agreed to join Nato in 1981 even with a precondition that they would not host nuclear weapons.

“If the choice that Washington has is a non-nuclear Scotland in Nato or a non-nuclear Scotland that isn’t in Nato, Washington would probably prefer we were in it,” he said.

University of Edinburgh research fellow Dr Colin Fleming agreed, adding that Britain and the US would be under international pressure “not to bully” Scotland.

But it would take at least seven years for the Westminster government to remove Trident from Scottish soil and redeploy elsewhere, he said — and it was “not the place of the Scottish parliament to force disarmament across the rest of the UK.”