Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt Fringe event featuring First Minister
Swinney was speaking to comedian Susan Morrison when the event was disrupted five times by six different groups of protesters who held up signs spelling the word 'genocide'.
As the event went on, tensions rose between the protesters and other members of the crowd, with three police officers called in and the First Minister's security team forced to keep people back from berating Swinney on the stage. Police were called in to remove pro-Palestinian protesters from the event
The protesters shouted at the First Minister to stop funding arms companies through the Government's commercial arm, Scottish Enterprise, as well as to describe the ongoing crisis in Gaza as a 'genocide'.
The First Minister sat quietly during the protests.
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The National
an hour ago
- The National
Keir Starmer's Palestine recognition speech full of colonial arrogance
This week, three-quarters of a century later, the British Prime Minister affirmed the enduring truth of Sayegh's words. In the same breath that Keir Starmer declared statehood to be the inalienable right of the Palestinian people, he confirmed that British recognition will hinge on the actions of the Israeli state: Only if Benjamin Netanyahu and his government continue their campaign of ethnic cleansing will Britain join 147 other countries in recognising [[Palestine]] as a sovereign nation. Speaking in front of two large Union Jacks, the Prime Minister acted with the same colonial arrogance that motivated the British colonisation of Palestine in the early 20th century. Justifying that occupation before the Peel Commission in 1937, Winston Churchill said: 'I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time … I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.' READ MORE: Police remove pro-Palestine protesters from John Swinney's Edinburgh Fringe show Keir Starmer would never say such things. However, for as long as Britain uses Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip and simultaneously supplies material aid to abet Israel's crimes, the Prime Minister channels Churchill's imperial logic: Dehumanise the Palestinians in order to justify the denial of their right to self-determination. In Gassan Kanafani's novella, Returning To Haifa, Said, the protagonist, asks his wife, Safiyya: 'Do you know what homeland is? It is where nothing like this happens.' Since October 2023, the Palestinian homeland has been decimated – 70,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on the Gaza Strip; 4000 buildings have been demolished in the Occupied West Bank. The conditions necessary for human habitation of that homeland have been systematically erased too. Gaza, the UN acknowledges, is now 'the hungriest place on earth'. As the direct consequence of intentional decisions by a nuclear power, the mass starvation of Gaza is, as Professor Adam Tooze points out, 'quite unlike that anywhere else in the world'. In Yemen, Sudan and Haiti – among the places where hunger is most acute – the share of the population at risk is between 49% and 57%. In Gaza, the share is 100%. The declared objective of Israel's genocide is to deny the Palestinian people even the hope of a homeland. Last week, the British state served that aim, conferring the right to decide Palestine's future not to the land's people, but to its illegal occupier. Deploying the language of universal human rights to strip the Palestinian people of their agency, Keir Starmer's duplicitous designs offer Benjamin Netanyahu an olive branch. By delaying any decision regarding recognition until the UN General Assembly meets in September, the British government has afforded the Israeli government six more weeks of impunity. Keir Starmer will only recognise Palestine as a last-ditch attempt to salvage what little faith remains in the 'rules-based international order'. To do so would involve committing the cardinal sin of humanising a population whose erasure the British state has licensed, supported and participated in for decades. If the British state is to concede that Palestinians, like the rest of the world, have the right to self-determination, then Keir Starmer and his Cabinet have a series of uncomfortable questions to answer. To this day, imperialism's serial dispossession of the Palestinians has rested on the explicit understanding that they do not enjoy the same rights as the rest of us. The question of recognition – and Keir Starmer's attitude to it – forces this contradiction to the surface for all to see. Since last year's General Election, the question of Palestine has posed serious challenges to the Labour leader's premiership. Confronted by a mass movement to end Israel's genocide, the Prime Minister has taken every possible step to evade accountability – including the criminalisation of peaceful protest. Last week's announcement is no different. The foreign policy of the British state – which has conducted more surveillance flights over Gaza than even Israel – is not, as far as our government is concerned, up for debate. Indeed, Britain's subjugation to the United States is such that the interests of imperialism have always sat outside the realms of our democracy. By cynically gesturing toward recognising the Palestinian state, Keir Starmer hopes to ease popular domestic pressure while not straying from the broad position of the Trump administration. The Palestine solidarity movement can have no truck with such colonial parlour games.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
I am a Palestinian. Keir Starmer's recognition plan is an insult
The Prime Minister announced last week that the UK would recognise the state of Palestine next month, but only if Israel does not meet a set of conditions which include agreeing a ceasefire, allowing in aid to the starving population of Gaza and engaging in a peace process which leads to a two-state solution. But Glasgow-based Wael Shawish, who is originally from Jerusalem and has family in Gaza, has said the conditional plan set out by Starmer is an 'insult' to Palestinians and is meaningless unless it is accompanied by tangible sanctions, such as an end to arms sales to Israel. 'It doesn't seem to be a genuine statement. They need to satisfy Palestinians – not just Starmer but other world leaders in the West – on why they are doing it now,' Shawish, who is part of the Scottish Palestinian Society, told the Sunday National. READ MORE: The National hosts Q&A with Peter Oborne on UK Gaza complicity 'I think there are a number of reasons [it is being done now] – one is that there is so much unhappiness in the West among the populations of these countries that makes the government divorced from the opinion of their people. 'So they want to do something to say 'okay, we are with you, you are angry, we are angry, we are taking steps and the step is to recognise the state of Palestine' not because the Palestinians deserve a state, but because Israel is misbehaving and we are punishing it by recognising Palestine. 'That is not the right way to go about it. We shouldn't be used as a stick to hit Israel with. We should get recognition because we deserve it. To use it as a bargaining chip to hit Israel with is an insult to us. "The only way this announcement could be meaningful is if it is coupled with sanctions or stopping exporting arms to Israel." 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'Some of them [Western world leaders], having seen the images of the starving children, now can recognise that they cannot argue about the death toll as being part of the battle, as collateral damage,' he said. 'It is now clear that there is a starvation plan in place to starve the Palestinian people and when these leaders actually provide weapons to Israel, to kill whoever they can kill, with British weapons […] these leaders are now worried that if somebody goes to the international courts, they could actually stand before the courts for being complicit, if not partners, in that genocide that is taking place.' A group of legal figures in the House of Lords claimed last week that the UK recognising Palestine would not be compatible with international law, citing a Pan-American treaty from 1933 – to which the UK was not a signatory. There are several signatories of the Montevideo Convention who recognised Palestine as a state. An expert explained to The National that it was a 'cynical ploy' by peers and a 'ludicrous' interpretation of the treaty. The SNP have said they will press ahead with a vote on recognising [[Palestine]], saying that it must be based on 'principle, not preconditions'. But, like Starmer, the party has still been speaking of a 'two-state solution that we all wish to see'. Dr Richard McNeil-Willson, a Middle East expert at Edinburgh University, said he did not believe a two-state solution was viable, adding that if state recognition is to happen, there needs to be 'serious discussions' on what that state looks like. In a piece for The Conversation, law lecturer Malak Benslama-Dabdoub – based at Royal Holloway University of London – also outlined how analysts have warned that recognition of this kind risks formalising a state in name only and Palestine would end up a 'fragmented, non-sovereign entity without control over its borders, resources or defence'. Shawish – who recently said his family member came back from an aid point with a gunshot wound – is in agreement and said he does not believe in the viability of a Palestinian state. He said: 'Even if recognition says the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, subject to the borders of 1967, is that feasible? You've got one million Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Can you get them out? 'If you can't, is there any point in having a state that is a Swiss cheese shape where there are pockets of Israel's settlements in the middle of the state all over the place? 'How viable is that state going to be? How independent or sovereign? I don't believe in the feasibility of a Palestinian state. 'I don't see the two states that Starmer is talking about as a viable option. It is too late. Maybe 25 years ago it was possible, not today.' A UK Government spokesperson said: "We have announced our intention to recognise [[Palestine]] in September to protect the viability of the two-state solution. The first step in that process must be a ceasefire and there is no question about that. 'Our demands on Hamas have not changed. For there to be any chance of peace, the hostages must be released. Hamas must lay down its weapons and commit to having no future role in the governance of Gaza. 'We must also see significant progress on the ground including the supply of humanitarian support and for Israel to rule out annexations in the West Bank, and a commitment to a long-term sustainable peace. We will make an assessment ahead of UNGA [The UN General Assembly] on how far both Israel and Hamas have met the steps we set out. No one side will have a veto on recognition through their actions or inactions."
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Is age verification being used right in Online Safety Act?
Chelsea Jarvie, who is finishing up a PhD in online age verification, said the technology brought in to support the implementation of the Online Safety Act needs to be 'urgently' looked at as she accused ministers of failing to 'read the room'. She added that the legislation in isolation will not be enough to protect children online, and the Government had "work to do" to balance children's safety with public trust in the technology available. The legislation has sparked a huge backlash since it came into force on July 25. It mandates that websites verify users' age – often using facial recognition or photo ID – before granting access to adult content such as pornography, violence, or material on self-harm and eating disorders. READ MORE: Revealed: The full text of SNP's independence strategy But while the sentiment may seem well-intentioned, major websites such as Reddit, Instagram and Wikipedia have been caught up in the storm, with the latter launching a court case against the UK Government as it argues the legislation will hurt collaborators. Nearly 470,000 people have signed a petition calling for the act to be repealed. Jarvie, who has been doing her research at the University of Strathclyde, said the UK is attempting to take ID-checking methods from the physical world and expecting them to work in the digital one, when trust in both the Government and cybersecurity is at an all-time low. 'The public don't want to be giving up their ID because they're concerned about security, privacy, surveillance, and there is a general lack of trust in the Government,' she told the Sunday National. 'So I think the Government has come at this from the perspective of 'we all want to keep children safe and so people will give up their ID in order to meet that goal', and they've just not read the room at all on what adults actually want from their own internet experiences. 'I think people do want online safety for children, but do they have to give up their ID or their face or their privacy for that? No, I don't think that they should. (Image: Supplied) 'We're essentially trying to take the methods that we use in the physical world to do ID, where we look at someone's face or we check their documents, and we're trying to replicate it in the digital world, and that, for me, is not the right approach. 'We need to be more innovative and thinking out of the box of how the internet works – the fact it's dynamic, we're served algorithmic content and have a much slicker and more effective way of telling whether someone is an adult or a child and guiding them through their internet journey that way.' While she said facial age verification has its place, there should be more options for people to anonymously confirm their age. "We should have more options people can choose if they want an anonymous method," she went on. "I don't think the technology options are available to meet everyone's needs and wants right now." The legislation has come into force in the wake of major brands such as M&S and Harrods being victims of cyberattacks, putting the public on edge about giving sensitive information away online. Not only are there privacy concerns, but the public have also been angered at being blocked from accessing legal content and many have turned to downloading virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow users to appear to be browsing from countries with looser rules. While Jarvie believes the UK Government's goal of trying to ensure children do not stumble across harmful content will largely have been achieved, the legislation alone will not make the internet safer for children. Asked if she felt age verification was being used in the right way, she said: 'I think the Government has brought something in and put a stake in the ground to say 'this is what we're going to do with online age verification to make the internet a safer place', but the legislation itself is not going to make the internet a safer place for children. 'There's so much more needed. READ MORE: Erin Brockovich joins forces with Scottish university to launch course 'It's one of the things I'm writing about in my thesis, is that on the internet we need layers of care around a minor. Age verification has come in as one control but you have so many other things you'd need to put in place to really make the internet a safer place, and that includes education for everybody. 'Have they [the UK Government] done the right thing? I think prioritising online safety from a legislative perspective, yes, but in practice, the technology that is there, the sentiment of the public, the collaboration between Government and public, I think is not right.' Jarvie added she felt engagement between the public and Government on the legislation had been 'seriously lacking'. 'I think the technology to support the regulation needs to evolve and we need to look at what people are saying, how they're now using VPNs, and looking at what it is they want and need and how we meet those requirements,' she went on. 'I also think there's a huge amount of trust and engagement needed between the public and the Government on this, you cannot just force it out on the basis everyone is going to do it because they care about online safety for kids because that's clearly not enough.' A UK Government spokesperson said: 'This self-proclaimed expert is wrong. The Online Safety Act protects children without sacrificing people's privacy. 'Under the law, platforms are required to verify users' ages using secure, privacy-preserving methods that avoid collecting or storing personal data. 'The Information Commissioner's Office has significant enforcement powers to hold platforms accountable, including the ability to impose severe fines on services that misuse personal information. All online services – regardless of where they are based – must adhere to UK data protection laws.'
