The End of the Road
In a week when Gaza’s health ministry said 40,005 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza after the 7 October attack by Hamas last year and that 92,401 Palestinians had been injured, the Scottish Government chose to meet with Israeli representatives in Edinburgh. The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said the death toll in Gaza passing 40,000 is a “grim milestone”. It’s acknowledged that the numbers do not necessarily reflect the true human toll as so many victims are still missing under the rubble, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This is the background to the meetings that key SNP members had last week.
The political elite in this country (by which I mean Scotland) is completely divorced from the people. This has been self-evident for years but is blindingly obvious as the photos of MSPs and cabinet ministers meeting representatives of the Israeli regime leak out. This is a grave and dire question of leadership from John Swinney and Angus Robertson and both should resign as a result. These meetings smash any notion that the Scottish Government was (or is) working on a different moral wavelength from the Westminster government. In a week when a new grotesque landmark for deaths in Gaza was announced, the Scottish government, any government should be coordinating a mass boycott of Israel, engaged in support for legal process to bring the Israeli perpetrators to justice and creating whatever forms of solidarity it can muster. Instead, we have secret meetings and grinning selfies.
Here’s John Mason meeting with the Israeli deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky last week. He writes “Useful discussion on what Israel hopes to achieve in Gaza. As UK learned in Ireland, to achieve peace we must talk to each other… including to people we disagree with.”
There is a complete disconnect from the retrospective comments issued by John Swinney after the meetings were brought to light and the statements from Grudsky.
Swinney said the meeting last week was used “to express the Scottish Government’s clear and unwavering position on the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza”.
He added: “The Scottish Government received the meeting request and accepted on the basis it would provide an opportunity to convey our consistent position on the killing and suffering of innocent civilians in the region.
“I understand why some believe a face-to-face meeting was not appropriate, however, I thought it necessary to outline our long-standing position on an immediate ceasefire directly, and explicitly, to one of Israel’s representatives in the UK.”
But none of that makes any sense.
If it was, as he is now framing it, a tough-talking demand for a ceasefire and condemnation, why was it in secret? As Kirsty Hughes points out: “There is the fundamental question here of why meet an Israeli diplomat in the face of the continuing horror of bombed schools, hospitals, children, women, men, infrastructure. But also, if – as the Scottish government says – the purpose was to make its position clear on the need for a ceasefire, why would you then discuss cooperating on anything – let alone a trio of technology, culture and renewables?”
“The Scottish government’s position on a ceasefire has been clear from the start – unlike Labour, when in opposition, who took until this March to clearly call for a ceasefire. There was no need or reason to meet the deputy ambassador to restate the Scottish government’s well-known position on this.”
This then isn’t just a failure of moral compass – it’s a complete failure to use or be aware of Scotland’s soft-power on a global stage. We don’t have a foreign policy, we aren’t in control of a military, we don’t have embassies abroad. But what we do have – or we could have – is some influence through diplomacy and symbolic action. Instead what you get is some sort of grotesque cosplay, MSPs acting as wannabe statesmen cosying up to a murderous apartheid regime.
As Hughes writes: “The Scottish government has a relatively new international strategy published just this January. It sets out three priorities for international activity: “(1) economy, trade and investment; (2) climate change, biodiversity and renewable energy; and (3) reputation, influence and relationships.” Well, the latter is for now well and truly shot. ”
This will be the end of the road for many people who are online declaring the end of their membership of the SNP. Set with the most dreadful moral crisis of our time – for which there can be no ambiguity – the SNP have chosen to “discussed unique commonalities” – and have a “Useful discussion on what Israel hopes to achieve in Gaza.”
The entire world knows what Israel hopes to achieve in Gaza.
The SNP leadership have lost any moral authority and any political credibility.
As Graeme Purves puts it: “The fiasco with the Israeli ambassador may prove to be one of the final fruits of Sturgeonism. Instead of steadying the ship, John Swinney and Angus Robertson have driven the SNP onto the rocks. If it is to have any future success, Scotland’s independence movement will have to be rebuilt from the bottom up.”
I can share your disgust at this move but can’t help but feel it’s an overreaction to say end of the road. I don’t know enough about what went on in this meeting but hard things need to be said about it.
Its difficult to see how you can have faith in people who have exhibited such a failure of moral and political judgement. I am seeing many people abandoning the party as a result.
Just so.
I am another who is appalled and disgusted with this utterly inappropriate meeting – though not all that surprised at Angus Robertson, arch management consultant type that he is. (I am not, have never been and never would be a member of the SNP but have voted for them several times albeit with increasing reluctance.) However, if this grossly insulting behaviour does help further divorce independence support from support for the SNP then perhaps that can contribute to the re-building of a real grass-roots, radical independence movement again. Unless powerfully driven from below/outside, the SNP will never deliver any version of independence that is worth having, if indeed, they are ever likely to help deliver it at all. I have said before – won’t stop me saying it again! – that the SNP is a party held together by the idea of independence as an un-met aspiration. Actually achieving it would reveal the lack of any consistently worthwhile politics in their party and they are much more comfortable with the status quo.
Very well put- the trans!mogrification of the party into the ever- aspirant,never realising Indy party took place,unrealised, in plain sight,+unrealised by me till the smell surrounding the Salmond assassination became too much..
Well said.
Spot on Mike
I completely agree. The Scottish Government is a parcel of rogues, bought and sold for the gold of the same US robber barons who are driving the Israeli genocide.
The SNP have been seduced by international ‘investors’ whose ‘investments’ come with strings – even chains – attached, as we see all over the world.
My personal experience over the last four years has been that none of them, nor their supposed regulatory bodies, nor the local authorities who have no genuine autonomy at all, can be held to account at all. Every one of them is somehow sworn to secrecy and bought and sold for corporate hold. Even our police, courts and legal profession seem to be compromised. We are ruled by organised crime.
If have said before here that I spoiled my ballot in the recent election, and also in the last local election. Democracy in Scotland is an Orwellian hollow sham.
The SNP are as complicit as every other major political party. But since their whole raison d’être is to stand up for Scotland, it is an act of utter betrayal. They just do as they are told – by Westminster, by American robber barons, even by Israel!
It’s almost as if they had a death wish. Every policy they come up with just serves corporate interests and could almost be designed to make them unpopular. Kate Forbes justified the so-called ‘Freeports’ as the only game in town. It just made her ridiculous. And everything is ‘private affluence and public squalor’, the privatisation of everything, the depopulation of the highlands and islands.
No doubt the Unionists will be having a field day, having persuaded Scots that the SNP = Yes and Yes = SNP. But they will soon discover this is not so. We are not better together with corrupt warmongering Westminster, and we are not better together with genocidal international plutocrats either.
They have got away with far too much for far too long. People, even our governments, have been far too afraid of them. As I’ve said before, its time to reject this endless Project Fear and form a new party, one that genuinely represents the people of Scotland and stands up for us.
I propose a people and planet (together) party. A genuine ecology party that is not just greenwashed corporatism. One that upholds the Claim of Right and builds a genuinely sustainable, small-is-beautiful, decentralised, economy that empowers people and planet.
The plutocrats have nothing to offer us except violence and destruction. They have no real interest in investing in anywhere or anything apart from their own perceived self-interest. To them, the entire planet exists only as a resource for them to exploit as they wish.
Well I do not exist to make money for them. I do not accept that ‘You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy’ .
We have come to a point in world history where fundamental change is now inevitable.
” A genuine ecology party”
What, like the Ecology Party that existed before the Greens subsumed them? I have one of their (green) badges…
Me too!
Yes indeed, a real ecology party, old style, is what I think we need. Something akin to this, old as it is.
https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/buddhist-economics/
Does this mean that these SNP
Politicians have been lobbied by Israel just like our ‘Embribed’ Westminster Conservatives and Labour Parties have received monies. ?
‘Embribed?’ Embedded and paid?
@Howard Brinton, historian Susan Williams (White Malice) writes about the CIA’s interest in applying drugs in fieldwork (I gather some acted as disihibitors) and materials used to harass, discredit and disable. Given the Israeli speciality in phone spyware (Pegasus etc), the British political policing methods and targets (Spycops Inquiry etc), the intelligence practice of preparing and weaponising compromising materials, and so on, I guess British politicians have been nobbled (blackmailed, stung, phished) as well as bribed. It’s a system flaw in political parties. And of course cheaper if you only have to deal with one (which is one reason why the CIA loathes democracy).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the_CIA
Thankfully Robertson will probably get sacked by the constituents of Edinburgh Central in 2016. Swinney doesn’t have the courage to sack anyone, but he will most definately be getting sacked from parliament by the constituents of Perthshire North in 2016. Unfortunately, in the meantime they will undoubtedly continue to be inept, out-of-touch, incompetent, stupid, fraudulent, and beholden to capatalist behemoths. The only reason to vote SNP is brainless repetition.
More like a crossroads. Bald Eagle is there due to a dearth of candidates.
Meanwhile, I’m getting ready for Anas as FM.
But NATO, the World Evil, is all about killing the children. Read the chilling work of Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, for a primer and a history. This is how it generates terror throughout the world (and yes, terrorises the governments of other states to join or be bombed, though that won’t necessarily help much). The SNP has been pro-NATO, and pro-Royalty (which conducts British nuclear terror, among other things), which renders its other statements on foreign policy void.
Such military pacts as NATO are fundamentally antidemocratic (not just because of the oppressive dictatorships and hereditary monarchies that are NATO allies). And great swathes of British foreign policy are outside of democratic influence anyway, regardless of our Empire’s bottom role in the Special Relationship with the USAmerican Empire.
Whether Israel is a NATO fortress, a future member, a sacrifice zone, a test ground for new weapons and surveillance/oppression technology, ground zero for Armageddon, model for a future USAmerican Christian theocracy/white supremacist state… the shadow of NATO enlargement falls across it, and has already blotted out the sun forever for a great many Palestinians.
The BBC has launched a very odd documentary series which appears to violate its ‘principles’ of impartiality at all levels, but asks the question:
Should America Police the World? (disturbing scenes, and very graphic images)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020xmq
Perhaps TheTime Has Come for ordinary folk’ to talk of many things’ without fear of reprisal for having an opinion…..
So much hidden from us
The Scottish independence movement seems rather easily distracted by external factors, that causes me to wonder if it is serious in its «purpose».
Maybe Scots ought to just retreat into the cringe and whinge mode, they are British after all.
Very sad on every count.
Bella’s consistent, humane, and forthright stance vis-a-vis the astounding cruelty and evil openly–even joyfully–practiced by the Israeli state is laudable and a profound contrast with the (at best) waffling of American “leaders.” Sometimes, it is indeed the case that smaller is better…and the dithering revealed by your article, Michael, portrays representatives of Scotland’s voice as being no worse than the best we are accustomed to hearing from the US government and now on the campaign trail. Principle and decency cry out from the margins, while the Official Middle continues dealing out weaponry like candy to the zionist beast. Keep hold of your humanity and sanity, as best you can; it is not clear that the worst has yet been reached.
Robertson was told to his face in the aftermath of July 4th GE that as the numbers stand in Edinburgh Central, he’ll be evicted by voters in 2026. This supposed error by him is far more to do with his own exit strategy than anything to do with the politics of Gaza, and is all the more shameful for it.
Just want to note this before the whole of the SNP are denounced as a parcel o rogues:
Row continues amongst SNP members over ‘tone-deaf’ Israel meetings | The National
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24524570.row-continues-amongst-snp-members-amid-tone-deaf-israel-meetings/
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24524570.row-continues-amongst-snp-members-amid-tone-deaf-israel-meetings/?ref=psapp
I hope sincerely this will consolidate a rethink.
A calamitous error of judgement indeed, which reveals a government utterly out of touch. But to describe it as the final fruit of ‘Sturgeonism’, whatever that is, is just weird, and wildly inappropriate.
Paddy- Nicola Sturgeon is now getting the blame for everything that goes wrong in Scotland and beyond now, often by people who previously praised her to the heavens. I am not sure of psychology of this phenomenon but I consider that the constant derision and previous adulation are both way over the top and not helpful to longer term cause of independence.
A lot of independence supporters need to take a deep breath, stop sounding off about everything that happens and have a long, hard, realistic look at where independence case stands and how to advance this in future.
I say this as someone who is opposed to Israeli government actions in Palestine and response of US and UK governments basically giving Netanyahu a blank cheque and am therefore also disappointed in reported Scottish government meeting with Israeli government officials.
I can’t recall ever praising Nicola Sturgeon publicly, though I acknowledge that she performed better than Boris Johnson did during the pandemic. The controlling and undemocratic way in which she and her husband led and managed the SNP was the reason I left the party.
Graeme- I was making a general observation not a personal one.
The SNP government (post 2015) have made mistakes and not shown the level of competency or transparency that many would have wanted. They have also introduced policies that have mitigated the worst effects of Westminster against an ever deteriorating economic situation and have had to contend with an increasingly hostile UK government and media.
They also won several elections in a row post 2014 though support for independence in general rather than SMP in particular may have been a factor in this.
Virtually all governments run out of steam and end in failure as their policy mistakes come back to haunt them.
I suspect that, regardless of any current actions of Scottish government, the tide is going out for SNP and they will struggle to retain power post 2016 election. The fear is that if the SNP is demonised by independence supporters(as opposed to criticised) and independence movement descend into feuding that this will inevitably harm the independence cause for foreseeable future. No one will be more pleased to see this outcome than those who oppose independence.
In short a sense of perspective is required.
I agree with all of that.
The SNP ran out of Labour policies to implement by 2012. I think the only major thing the SNP came up with themselves was abolishing the graduate endowment scheme (and having a council tax freeze for a decade instead of a year, with disasterous results). The are pretty barren with ideas apart from the vacuous ‘everything will be fine when we’re free’ and ‘a big boy did it and ran away’. If you really aren’t that bothered about independence they are spectacularly shit, to the extent that anything government-related with the word ‘Scottish’ at the start is expected to be pointless/not work/cost a fortune/be entirely privatised.
Satan – please give examples of ‘Labour policies’ that SNP have implemented. This is ridiculous rhetoric trying to claim credit for someone else’s work. Perhaps you should have said policies Labour should have been running on?
Please explain why policies around no prescription charges, student tuition fees etc were not implemented between 2007-2010 by Labour government or have appeared in Labour manifesto’s since.
The truth is that the SNP, incompetent as they have been at times, have implemented more economically and socially progressive policies than Labour have promoted in last 17 years. (a low bar I admit).
This is not to big up the SNP but to point out the realities of a timid and essentially ‘conservative’ Labour Party in UK (which in reality means in Scotland too).
Like Gerry Hassan, I see the SNP’s current crisis as a consequence of the way Scottish Government and the party have been run over the past decade. You may recall that Nicola Sturgeon was First Minister and leader of the party for nearly all of that time. Back in 2020, the SNP in Edinburgh Central had the opportunity to chose Marco Biagi, a politician with previous ministerial experience and a commitment to progressive policies, as their candidate for the coming Scottish Parliament elections. Instead, at the bidding of Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership team, they chose Angus Robertson as their standard bearer. We are now confronted with a result of that choice.
It would be equally bizarre to argue it’s thanks to Nicola Sturgeon that the SNP occupied the moral high ground in the first place by backing Humza Yousaf, who played the major role in defining the SNP’s distinctive position on Gaza.
My perspective is not ‘weird’, ‘inappropriate’ (whatever that means!) or ‘bizarre’ because you happen to disagree with it. Others have offered very similar critiques at greater length in the media. I have discussed the matter with friends and aquaintences who, like me, have a knowledge of the SNP built up over many decades, and they have come to the same view.
Apologies, I did not intend my remarks to be personal. I felt that blaming Sturgeon(ism) is inappropriate because it removes agency and responsibility from Robertson (and Swinney, if reports that it was he who sent Robertson to meet the Israeli diplomat are correct). And I thought it was weird/ bizarre to ascribe responsibility up the (political) generations. I completely accept that opinions might differ on all of this.
Doubtless Nicola Sturgeon had her faults. But she excelled at projecting soft power, and playing a weak hand with flair. To lay the current fiasco at her door stretches credibility and comes across as vindictive. Nor does it help with making sense of where we are now.
I’m sorry Paddy but I have to disagree with you here, on the contrary Nicola Sturgeon played a very strong hand badly. I’m trying hard to move on from the Sturgeonism thing, but it is hard. For a quote worthy of Kate Forbes “by their fruits you shall know them”. This is what we are dealing with presently. We need some hard pruning.
Just so.
I agree with pretty much all of this, but I’m not sure about the line about Sturgeonism. With hindsight she was over venerated, but I also felt she tried to prevent conservative elements of the party from holding too much sway. That involved compromise, and it ultimately didn’t work.
On a more general point, this really ought to be a point where independence supporters who seem determined to defer their political compass until post-indy need to stop and have a think. The “you can vote for ever you want after independence and the point is they’ll be democratically elected” crowd. Yes, yes, heard it all before. And what happens if, like now, they are found to be morally wanting? You fancy winning and all you get is Kate Forbes having cosy meetings with other far-right governments, with vacuous overtures about finding “common ground” etc?
The far-right are gaining ground globally, but there’s also tentative signs of the progressive left biting back. We cannot allow our independence struggle to be hoodwinked into being allied with the former.
A lot of people commenting on this sight need to take a reality check.
Very few people genuinely thought Yes would win in 2014. Westminster didn’t or there was no way they would have agreed to the referendum.
NS benefited from Yes vote consolidating around SNP post 2014 but under any reckoning she was a highly successful leader at ballot box. She has improved support for independence amongst younger and female voters. She was greatly feared by Westminster and vilified by media similarly to Diane Abbott & Jeremy Corbyn who were also perceived as a threat to British state. This really kicked in when support for independence rose above 50% during covid in part due to her personal approach.
Her last few years have proven what many of us realised all along namely she had faults and these come back to bite you after a long period in power.
The vilification of NS by some in independence movement is way over the top and has hints of the revisionist approach to leaders practised in China & USSR. It is also led by males of a certain age and has undercurrent’s of misogyny and the cringe.
The reality of situation is that :
it is unlikely to achieve independence without a referendum.
a referendum (agreed or not agreed by Westminster) is not achievable without overwhelming support (>60%) of electorate in Scotland.
a major political party is required to achieve this aim.
the political party needs to be an integral part of independence movement.
Independence was/is not going to be easy to achieve. The one more push method of last 10 years was always reliant on a supportive Westminster. We now know they will try to obstruct independence until it is inevitable.
We are therefore in some ways where we were after 1979 Devolution Referendum (in both referendums 37% of total electorate voted Yes). The feelings of despair and depression are similar as well.
The lesson from post 1979 is independence movement needs to reach outwards to as many communities and people as possible and reflect before next steps which will help to attract electorate to cause. The movement needs to avoid naval gazing, fighting each other and indulging in blame. game which will only alienate electorate further.
I have a vague memory, and perhaps I am dreaming, of some sort of philosophical or political divide between Mike Small and Craig Murray, so I post this URL with slight trepidation. However, Craig Murray is in fine form in discussing in his own way the subject of Mike’s post here, and the response from both, of disgust, appears to be the same. Worth a read. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/08/the-purpose-of-scottish-independence/
Craig explains:
So, to use the modern phrase, Swinney and Robertson’s Zionism is a feature not a glitch. The SNP is just like the other parties in being led by career politicians for whom Zionism is an essential belief for admission to the UK Establishment.
This episode has served to highlight the difference between the continued aspiration of the Scottish people for a better state, in which foreign relations are conducted on ethical grounds, and the actual SNP political class who have precisely the same cynical and transactional approach to politics as their UK peers – they see it essentially as a tool to make a fat living.
Back to myself.
The criticisms of Sturgeon I can understand, but unless the political leadership has the moral and political authority to totally abandon the neoliberal (that’s basically the US) ascendancy, – that’s globalisation, corporate power, low taxes, low social investment, ecological vandalism, NATO, etc, – all leadership will fail, as we’re seeing throughout the west now. I suppose,, and this relates intimately with Mike’s article, it’s basically a failure or even absence of moral principles, of moral leadership, at home and abroad. If you run a country on the basis of Thatcherism’s “there’s no such thing as society”, then it can’t be a surprise that a political and economic system that doesn’t even recognise there is such a thing, continues to fail the society it has assumed control of.
@John Monro, yes. But it must be relevant that Craig Murray has more recently moved on from defending a kind of wooly Brit-establishment-was-sort-of-wrong-sometimes position to a more fundamental opposition:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/08/we-are-the-bad-guys/
I would go further: Thatcher’s ‘no such thing as society’ lie was the icing of the cake of neoliberalism’s ‘no such thing as ecology’ degenerate filth.
The red line was crossed a long, long time ago by the SNP for me. Their unwavering support for neoliberalism ensures that actions like the one above are actioned by default. The markets determine the politics, the markets will always open a door for Israel. It doesn’t matter how many kids they are slaughtering in cold blood, how many families they murder and bloodlines they blow apart with their drones, it’s all to do with their economic influence. Independence must completely decouple from this poisonous ethical and technical path that the SNP have gone down for long past a decade now. People like Wishart, Robertson, Mason and even Sturgeon to a degree have shown they will bend over backwards for anything that constitutes another step up the ladder of neoliberal skullduggery. Independence cannot happen with the current SNP.
Bit naive, are you really suggesting no talks, how to get your point across then, diplomacy is all about speaking to people you do not agree with, to get your point across and establish channels of communication red lines, and perhaps as an outcome a way forward. Even with an entity as horrible and venal as the current Israeli government. Clearly the Israelis would argue a quid pro quo and spin the talks to reflect their position.
@Don, on the contrary, surely it is naive to think that Scotland could privately appease the Israelis on behalf of Palestinians. The whole point of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is that:
“international co-operation is required”
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/publications-and-resources/Genocide_Convention_75thAnniversary_2023.pdf
This isn’t a case for secret diplomacy, but open international solidarity and public application of the rule of international law.