SNP urged to suspend Angus Robertson over ‘secret’ Israel meeting

Pressure is being applied on the SNP’s external affairs secretary, Angus Robertson, to resign over a surreptitious meeting with Israel’s deputy ambassador as his party leads a bid to suspend him. 

The SNP’s Dalkeith branch formally welcomed a censure motion against Mr Robertson for this sensational act of dealing with Daniela Grudsky, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK. 

Many SNP MPs, MSPs and members have reacted angrily to the meeting stating that it undercuts the SNP’s criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and its demand for a Palestinian state. Of this, some have accused Mr Robertson and have gone further to demand that he be fired. 
 
As it was revealed later, one of the party’s senior MSPs, Christine Grahame, has sent a letter to the acting leader John Swinney to demand some action against Mr Robertson stating he is a “liability”. 
 
However, according to The Telegraph last week, Mr Swinney had sanctioned the discussions claiming that such deliberations were necessary so that the said minister could “articulate the Scottish Government’s unequivocal stance regarding the urgent need for cessation of hostilities in Gaza”. 
 
Speaking on Sunday Shona Robison, Deputy First Minister said that, according to her knowledge Mr Swinney ‘believed the meeting was needed’ to allow Mr Robertson to highlight the concern of the Scottish Government regarding Israeli actions. 
 
Although she claimed that the Israeli request to meet Ms Grudsky was made to several SNP ministers, she said that the request was assigned to Mr Robertson since external affairs are within his remit. 
 
Uproar from SNP members 
 
However, efforts by the party leadership to come to the defense of Mr Robertson seemed to have made little headway in mollifying members’ wrath over the Aug 8 gathering. 
 
The SNP has already expelled John Mason, the Glasgow Shettleston MSP, after he used the social media post to express the view that the actions of Israel in Gaza were not “genocide”. He also met with Ms Grudsky. 
 
He said that if Israel’s operation was genocidal in nature, then Israel could have killed “many many more” Palestinians. The SNP claimed that he rather ‘offhandedly’ ignored over forty thousand Palestinian deaths. 
 
According to the Times , the motion of censure sought to present that action should also be taken against Mr Robertson because he convened the meeting following the unlawful occupancy injunction of the Israeli on the Palestinian territories declaration by the International Court of Justice last month. 
 
It accused Mr Robertson of defying the court order by talking about the ‘areas of cooperation’ with Israel when it demanded no aid or assistance should be given which sustains the current reality. 
 
The motion also mentioned the ‘passionate’ anti-war speeches of Humza Yousaf, the former first minister, and his wife, Nadia El Nakla, who was left stranded with her parents in Gaza last year. 
 
‘Bringing party into disrepute’ 
 
It stated that while SNP “has led on condemnation of these actions”, the meeting meant that the party was in “breach of public trust” on the issue. 
 
This was based on the notion that Mr Robertson should be reported to the SNP’s conduct committee for “briinging the party into disrepute”. It also demanded that he should be suspended as a minister until a Scottish Government probe clears him. 
 
SNP members and groups such as Scots Asians for Independence had been accused of trying to gather enough support for the motion so that it will be debated out at the annual SNP party conference in Edinburgh this month-end. 
 
In its own article, published on 12 May 2013, The Mail on Sunday quotes Ms Grahame herself, who wrote to Mr Swinney about the meeting telling him that her constituents in Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale were ‘shocked at this apparent endorsement by the SNP. ’ 
 
She said: “I have long regarded AR as an appendage the front bench can well do without, and he is now, in my estimation a liability. ” 
 
BBC Radio Scotland Sunday Show, February 14Ms Robison was speaking in relation to a meeting that had raised ‘a lot of upset’, although she concluded it was necessary to ‘make clear the extremely of the Scottish Government’ that there should be an immediate ceasefire and a stop to ‘the killing of innocent civilians’. 
 
The SNP and Scottish Government were contacted for a comment.