Ross Greer (West Scotland)
(Green)
During recent weeks and months, there has been a narrative, which
has come primarily from the London commentariat, that
international affairs is not really of interest to voters or,
worse, that the public should not be interested in it and should
not vote on the basis of it. That is profoundly undemocratic; we
do not do that with any other area of Government policy. It is
also patronising, because it presumes that the public care about
other people only if they also live on these islands. I do not
think that that is true of communities anywhere across the UK,
and I certainly do not believe that it is true of communities in
Scotland.
Our country has always had an internationalist outlook. That is
in part because of centuries of emigration. Scotland has had a
disproportionate impact—both good and bad—on the world relative
to our size. However, today, our voice on the global stage is
severely limited by our being part of the UK, and there is no
clearer example of that than in relation to the on-going genocide
in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed,
including at least 13,000 children, and we know that those
numbers are a massive undercount.
The public in Scotland and across the UK have been in favour of a
ceasefire for months, and I am confident that a majority would
support an arms embargo on Israel. However, Westminster
has treated public opinion with contempt, to the extent that the
UK Government is now considering a ban on MPs and councillors
engaging with pro-Palestine—and, for some reason, climate
change—protesters. That proposal, by the way, was made by , who is an adviser to the
current Conservative Government, but who was previously a Labour
MP, and who spent a lot of his time in office palling around with
some very unsavoury regimes across the world; he is certainly no
defender of human rights.
If Scotland were independent, we could apply such an arms embargo
and end the scandal—which mentioned—of equipment that has
been made in factories in Scotland being used to supply an
Israeli occupation force
that is committing a genocide in Gaza. Rather, we have a UK arms
export control regime that is so lax that, when the relevant
minister was answering a question in the House of Commons last
week, they cited the robust oversight of the arms export controls
committee—a body that has not existed for years.
In December, Foreign Office officials expressed concern to the
Foreign Secretary that Israel was not acting in
line with international law, which is something that we can all
see on our TV screens. They presented the Foreign Secretary with
options on arms export control licences to Israel, and
chose to continue those arms
licences, which I find very hard to square with Alexander
Stewart’s claim that the UK Government is making a significant
effort to secure a ceasefire. One of the most effective things
that the UK Government could do to secure a ceasefire would be to
stop providing bombs to the people who are bombing civilians in
Gaza.
Recently, the Parliament held a reception for young Scottish
apprentices who are working at the cutting edge of Scottish
science and innovation. Mr Greer was implicated in trying to
block their access to the building, which caused concern to some
of those who attended. He went on to describe those young people,
who came to the Parliament to promote engagement, as being
“a who’s who of Israel’s arms dealers”.
Will he now apologise for doing so and for the offence that he
caused?
Ross Greer
I am grateful for the intervention, because Mr Hoy gives me the
opportunity to point out that the Conservative Party hosted a
reception in the Parliament for the companies that are currently
supplying an occupation force that is committing a genocide.
[Interruption.]
The Deputy Presiding
Officer ()
Members!
Ross Greer
The shameful event that happened in the Parliament a couple of
weeks ago was the presence of companies such as Raytheon, which
is Israel’s missile supplier.
It is the supplier of missiles to an occupation force that is
destroying schools, destroying hospitals and executing children
on sight. That was the shameful event that happened in the
Parliament a couple of weeks ago.
NATO is recognised as an area of policy difference between the
Scottish Greens and the Scottish National Party. For the Greens,
there are two primary reasons why we would not have an
independent Scotland join NATO. The first is its nuclear
first-strike policy, and the second is the presence of the United
States and Turkey in the alliance.
The US and Turkey are not reliable partners. They are not
partners for peace or leaders in an alliance for democracy.
Turkey is certainly not a democracy, and the United States has
done all that it can to undermine democracy across large parts of
the world, most notably in—but not limited to—South America.
Anything that Israel is committing against
the people of Palestine right now has been committed by the
Turkish regime against the Kurdish community inside Turkey and
outside its borders for decades.
To read the whole debate, OPEN HERE
