Scottish government suspends all meetings with Israel

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Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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The Scottish government announced Monday that it had suspended all meetings with Israeli ambassadors until “real progress” is made towards peace in the Gaza Strip and unimpeded access is granted to humanitarian assistance to the enclave, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement, External Affairs Secretary, Angus Robertson, said the Scottish government would not accept any invitation for a further meeting with Israel until there was real progress on the Gaza conflict.

“This will remain our position until such time as real progress has been made towards peace, unimpeded access to humanitarian assistance is provided and Israel cooperates fully with its international obligations on the investigation of genocide and war crimes,” said Robertson.

This came after a recent meeting between Robertson and Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the UK, Daniela Grudsky, about two weeks ago, sparking criticism within the Scottish National Party (SNP).

The External Affairs Secretary said his view was that, given Grudsky had requested the meeting this was “an opportunity to express the Scottish Government’s clear and unwavering position” on the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. And I did exactly that, “he added.

OPINION: The gloves come off as two-faced Israel and its lackeys search desperately for friends

“No one intended that this meeting be presented as legitimising the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza,” he noted, expressing that the Scottish Government has been consistent in its “unequivocal condemnation of the atrocities” in the Palestinian enclave.

Noting that many had seen the meeting as a sign of normalisation between the Israeli and Scottish governments, Robertson stressed that it was clear that it would have been better to ensure that its agenda was strictly limited to the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza .

“I apologise for the fact that this did not happen,” he said.

Robertson added that, “going forward, it is clear that, having now spoken directly to the Israeli Government and making them aware of our position on an immediate ceasefire, it would not be appropriate to accept any invitation for a further meeting.”

Highlighting that this would remain the Scottish government’s position until real progress on a ceasefire is made, he said: “The Scottish Government does not support any normaliation of its relations with the Israeli Government during this period.”

“The Scottish Government will never hold back in expressing support for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, an end to UK arms being sent to Israel and the recognition of a sovereign Palestinian State within a two-state solution.”

Former Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, welcomed the statement, saying Robertson has “clearly listened and reflected on the anger and upset” in relation to his meeting with the deputy Israeli ambassador.

“Crucially, he has made it clear there cannot be normal relations with the Govt of Israel,” Yousaf said on X.

READ: British Foreign Office official resigns over Israel arms sales, war crimes in Gaza

Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Continue ReadingScottish government suspends all meetings with Israel

SNP MSP has whip removed following ‘utterly abhorrent’ comments about Israel-Hamas conflict

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-msp-has-whip-removed-following-utterly-abhorrent-comments-about-israel-hamas

John Mason at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, April 30, 2024

AN SNP MSP has had the whip removed following “utterly abhorrent” comments about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The party confirmed it has taken action following social media comments from Glasgow Shettleston MSP John Mason.

Party officials said that the whip has been removed with “immediate effect” after he posted: “If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed ten times as many.”

He made the comment amid a row over a meeting between Israel’s deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky and Scottish External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson.

Removing the whip from Mr Mason, a party spokesperson said: “To flippantly dismiss the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians is completely unacceptable.

“There can be no room in the SNP for this kind of intolerance.

“The chief whip has today withdrawn the whip from John Mason MSP with immediate effect, pending internal parliamentary group due process.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-msp-has-whip-removed-following-utterly-abhorrent-comments-about-israel-hamas

Continue ReadingSNP MSP has whip removed following ‘utterly abhorrent’ comments about Israel-Hamas conflict

SNP slammed for ‘shameless’ meeting with Israeli diplomat as slaughter of Palestinians continues

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-slammed-for-shameless-meeting-with-israeli-diplomat-as-slaughter-of-palestinians-continues

A Palestinian displaced woman by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip flees from Hamad City, following an evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave parts of the southern area of Khan Younis, August 11, 2024

SCOTTISH Greens slammed the SNP government today for “shameless” and “two-faced” meetings with Israeli diplomats as the slaughter of Palestinians continues.

SNP Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Angus Robertson reportedly met deputy Israeli ambassador Daniela Grudsky Ekstein last week to discuss “mutual interests.”

Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer hit out at his party’s erstwhile coalition colleagues.

He said: “The Israeli regime is committing genocide in Gaza.

“They cut off water and electricity, restricted the supply of everything from medicines to period products and have slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent people in a 10-month campaign of relentless bombing.

“This is a shameless two-faced approach from the SNP.

“They publicly condemn Israel’s war crimes whilst holding secret meetings with its representatives to discuss so-called ‘mutual interests.’

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-slammed-for-shameless-meeting-with-israeli-diplomat-as-slaughter-of-palestinians-continues

Continue ReadingSNP slammed for ‘shameless’ meeting with Israeli diplomat as slaughter of Palestinians continues

George Osborne: Rachel Reeves is a ‘mini-me’

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https://www.thenational.scot/news/24495275.george-osborne-rachel-reeves-mini-me

George Osborne has said the cuts announced by Rachel Reeves were almost identical to the ones he announced as chancellor (Image: NQ)

GEORGE Osborne has called Rachel Reeves a “mini-me” over her recent statement to the Commons, where she announced a swathe of cuts to plug a £22 billion black hole in public finances.

Osborne– who was chancellor under David Cameron’s government and was instrumental in bringing about austerity – said that the cuts announced by Reeves on Monday were “almost identical in structure and form” to those he made in 2010, when he announced £6.2bn worth of cuts.

“I don’t think there was anything she announced that I would have violently disagreed with or not done myself.

“In fact, it was almost identical in structure and form to what I did in the first couple of months that I was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

“So, you know, ‘Continuity Osborne.”

Sharing a clip from the podcast on social media, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “No comment.”

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24495275.george-osborne-rachel-reeves-mini-me

Continue ReadingGeorge Osborne: Rachel Reeves is a ‘mini-me’

Young people led surge for smaller parties but no Reform ‘youthquake’, says UK election survey

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Stuart Fox, University of Exeter

One of the defining features of contemporary electoral politics in Britain is the age divide. Young people are far more likely to support Labour, and older people to support the Conservatives. This divide is still apparent following the 2024 election – but it hides the complexity of how young people in particular choose to vote.

To the extent that there is a “youth vote” in Britain, it is characterised not by support for a single party, but by a particularly fierce rejection of the Conservatives – alongside greater enthusiasm than their elders for left-wing, socially liberal alternatives to Labour.

YouGov surveyed 2,182 adults of all ages between July 5 and 8 for my research team at the University of Exeter. The sample was selected to be representative of the British adult population.

The data from this survey – published here for the first time – gives a snapshot of how people of different ages say they cast their votes. Five per cent of our respondents under 30 didn’t tell us how they voted so we don’t know how their votes might have changed the overall picture. More research in the coming months may give a fuller account.

As the graph below shows, it’s only among the over-65s that the Conservatives won more support than Labour (by around 26 percentage points). They trailed Labour by around 8 points among the 51-64 age group, 26 points among 30- to 50-year-olds, and 35 points among the under-30s. Almost incredibly for Britain’s oldest and most successful political party, the Conservatives won barely 7% of the vote of under-30s in the survey.

Parties voted for by age group:

Bar chart showing vote choice by age group. Source: YouGov for University of Exeter, 5-7 July 2024., CC BY-NC-ND

Another key characteristic of the 2024 election is the record-low combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives, and concurrent record-high vote share for smaller parties. This was not a blip. Voters have been steadily shifting away from the two major parties for years. But in 2024, the extent to which they did so was unprecedented: overall, the combined Labour/Tory vote share was just 57%.

The rejection of the major parties is most profound among young voters. Their support has become fragmented to such an extent that it is not really accurate to speak of a singular “youth vote”. Less than half (49%) of under-30s surveyed voted for Labour or the Conservatives. This compares to 54% of 30- to 50-year-olds, 55% of 51- to 64-year-olds, and 60% of over-65s.

The combined vote share for smaller parties among the under-30s was greater – at 46% – than the 42% who voted for the Labour party. The most successful challengers to the major parties for the youth vote were the Greens and Liberal Democrats, each of whom were backed by 15% of under-30s in the survey.

“Others” – including the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and independents – won a combined 10% of votes from young respondents aged under 30. But the young people surveyed were not simply casting around for any alternative to the major parties. Just 6% of under-30s in the survey said they backed Reform UK (compared with 17% among the over-50s).


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No Reform youthquake

In the closing days of the campaign, there was some suspicion that Reform might achieve a “mini youthquake” in this election or the next. A JLPartners poll found that Reform appealed strongly to soon-to-be-enfranchised 16- and 17-year-old voters, and mock school elections apparently saw Reform winning a great deal of support among schoolchildren across the country.

Our data suggests this did not materialise in 2024. Reform has had some success in appealing to young voters: among under-30s from poorer households, for example, 13% said they supported Reform, compared with 4% for those from wealthier households.

However, similar proportions of under-30s from poorer households also said they voted for the Liberal Democrats (11%) and the Greens (14%). While voters in older age groups who were fed up of Labour and the Conservatives were more likely to switch to Reform and may do so again in future, among the under-30s such voters appeared more likely to switch to the Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.

Turnout

Turnout is a crucial issue when considering how young people vote. They have always been less likely to vote than their elders in any particular election. This owes primarily to lower levels of political interest, as well as circumstances associated with early adulthood such as being financially precarious and being less settled in one location. This was true in 2024 as well.

The graph below shows self-reported turnout by age group. The figures are substantially higher than the true turnout numbers, reflecting the long-established tendency of people to exaggerate their voting behaviour in surveys, but they clearly illustrate the age divide: under-30s were the group most likely to say they hadn’t voted.

Turnout by age group:

Bar chart showing turnout by age group and socioeconomic group
YouGov for University of Exeter, 5-7 July 2024., CC BY-NC-ND

The graph shows not only was the turnout of under-30s lower than that of older age groups, but that of under-30s from poorer households was particularly low. Young people from poorer backgrounds are less likely to vote than their predecessors were 30 years ago, and so are under-represented in elections to an even greater extent today.

People who vote during early adulthood establish habits that make them likely to vote for the rest of their lives. Those who don’t form such habits by their late 20s are likely to remain serial abstainers.

Younger generations are becoming increasingly unlikely to vote in their first election, leading a greater proportion of them to develop lasting habits of non-voting.

It is this tendency that lies behind one of the major democratic challenges facing the UK: rising levels of disengagement with politics and with voting, as younger people age but continue their youthful pattern of avoiding the ballot box.

Stuart Fox, Lecturer in British Politics, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingYoung people led surge for smaller parties but no Reform ‘youthquake’, says UK election survey