Crisis around FM has the wrong people cheering
THERE’S a good rule in politics which has served me well. Let’s call it the Dora Gaitskell Rule. Dora was the wife of then-Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell. After a fiery speech at a Labour Party conference in 1962 opposing the UK entering the European Economic Community, she turned to him and said: “All the wrong people are cheering.”
As the Scottish Government is enveloped in crisis, that is what is happening here. Those cheering in this case include, variously, Tories, right-wing agitators, Muslim haters, and people obsessed with the existence of trans people. If they’ve got cause to be chirpy, the political situation undoubtedly gets two thumbs down from me.
From an outsider’s perspective, when you cut out all of the noise, the general problem seems obvious. The Scottish National Party have been in power for a very long time. It is extremely rare for any party to remain in government as long for 17 years, and normally, they would have been hammered by serious problems by then.
Those 17 years have been marked by the most profound crises to embroil Western nations since the end of the war, particularly in the second half of that period.
The SNP have legitimate questions to answer about their record after this extended stint at the top. Given their guiding mission, the SNP can point to the fact that support for independence has surged.
When the 2014 referendum campaign began, the proportion of Scots backing Yes was in the upper 20s, while today’s polls suggest independence has the support the backing of half the population.
The problem is that those who endorse independence often passionately disagree on other issues – including on what independence even means, and what it’s for.
The formidable presence of Nicola Sturgeon at the helm helped patch over those cracks. But as she left, those cracks became chasms.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has left the Greens – and indeed the more progressive wing of the independence movement – feeling shocked and betrayed, and it is easy to see why. That said, it’s important to take stock of what this means for the great moral and human question of the current time – that is, the genocide in Gaza.
Here’s a precis of what has happened. After spending 2000 years persecuting the Jewish people, European nations decided that the Palestinian people should be made to pay the price. For generations, the West alternated between turning a blind eye and directly facilitating Israel subjecting the Palestinians to ethnic cleansing, occupation, land theft and illegal colonisation, apartheid, brutal acts of mass murder, persecution – well, we really could go on.
After Hamas and other armed groups committed unjustifiable war crimes, Israeli leaders declared – very openly – their intention to institute collective punishment against Gaza through a devastating bombing campaign and a siege of the essentials of life.
Those same Western states responsible for legitimising and abetting decades of Palestinian suffering lined up behind this obscenity, through the provision of weapons as well as diplomatic and political support. When Israel launched an unevidenced smear campaign against Gaza’s main humanitarian agency, UNRWA, during an entirely manufactured humanitarian catastrophe – up to and including famine – multiple Western states cut funds in an attempt to financially strangle it.
Occasionally such countries indulged in hand-wringing, sure, but of a type which Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew he could easily ignore.
Under Humza Yousaf’s leadership, Scotland took a different position. From the start, collective punishment was opposed, and a ceasefire was swiftly demanded.
Given the toxic media and political climate, this was a courageous position to take – despite polling showing this was where the public was at both north and south of the Border.
Indeed, this contrasted with the morally abject position of the
Westminster Labour leadership, with Keir Starmer initially backing Israel’s “right” to cut off water and energy – a grave war crime – and lining up behind the bloodbath. When the SNP tabled a motion correctly condemning Israel for collective punishment, Labour gutted the substance of it. Meanwhile, the SNP have rightly demanded deeds, not words, such as an end to arms sales.
History will be very kind indeed to Scotland’s leadership. But what must be feared now is that this righteous and horribly vindicated position will be threatened. This would be a grave error indeed. Scotland has rightly been judged to be on the right side of history, and its position has strengthened all those who stood against one of the great crimes of our age.
Pressure must be kept on Scotland’s leaders to remain vocally committed to holding Israel’s leaders to account, and demanding that concrete action is taken to protect the Palestinian people from genocidal mayhem.
Apologists for this monstrous onslaught are currently delighted by Yousaf’s woes – but don’t give them the satisfaction. Whatever happens, the Palestinians need our solidarity more than ever – and Scotland must remain steadfast.