A few days after the Hamas atrocities of 7 October, Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, attended a service of solidarity at a synagogue near Glasgow. He embraced the mother of Bernard Cowan, a Scot killed by Hamas at the kibbutz where he had settled. “Your grief is my grief,” he told her. Later that day, the SNP leader spoke to journalists at Bute House in Edinburgh: he described movingly the plight of his in-laws, who had become trapped under Israeli bombardment while visiting relatives in Gaza. He became one of the first senior political voices in the UK to call for a ceasefire on both sides to allow humanitarian aid into the territory. It’s worth remembering this context ahead of the debate on the SNP’s motion, which reiterates that call for an immediate ceasefire, five months on and more than 29,000 deaths later.
This is a matter of huge personal resonance for Yousaf, but his Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, has led on it in the Commons, returning to the matter again and again at prime minister’s questions. Party sources say this unity of purpose is a reflection of what SNP politicians – at Westminster and Holyrood – are seeing every day in their inboxes and hearing on the doorstep, as voters become increasingly horrified by what has unfolded in Gaza. Discussion of the motion has been dominated by the impact it could have on Labour, with concerns they could see a repeat of last November’s rebellion, also prompted by a similar SNP motion, in which 56 MPs rejected Keir Starmer’s more cautious stance. After Scottish Labour unequivocally backed calls for an immediate ceasefire at their conference in Glasgow last weekend, Starmer used his speech there to indicate an incremental shift in position, and a Labour amendment to the SNP motion published on Tuesday now calls for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. Meanwhile, senior Labour figures have accused the SNP of failing to build consensus, behaviour condemned as “deplorable” by the shadow Scottish secretary, Ian Murray, and of playing politics with a complex international crisis. By including a reference to Israel engaging in the “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people, say critics, the SNP deliberately makes it impossible for other parties to lend their support. There have been reports that, because of uneasiness about this particular language, Starmer will order Labour MPs to abstain from the SNP motion. But the SNP insists it has been working with groups of Labour MPs known to support an immediate ceasefire, and argues that Murray and Lisa Nandy’s call to support a Labour-amended motion that “everyone can get behind” risks ending up with a lowest common denominator view that has no international impact. As Flynn, writing for Guardian Opinion on Wednesday morning, says: “No one is pretending that one vote at Westminster will magically result in a ceasefire overnight. But a ceasefire is more likely to happen if the UK parliament and government join international pressure.” The party says this is entirely consistent with the position it has taken from those early days after the Hamas attacks – unlike Labour and the UK government. They believe that voters have appreciated the leadership Yousaf has shown – he has garnered praise from some of his most ardent critics for what they have described as his dignity and moral courage. But in an election year as high stakes as this for the SNP, with Scottish Labour toe to toe in the polls, this motion could have significance well beyond the machinations of Commons process. In his first campaign speech of the new year, Yousaf insisted that Starmer “doesn’t need Scotland” to win the general election, arguing that voting in more SNP MPs would “keep him honest”, and offering to “work constructively” with a Labour government to prevent backsliding on green investment or the creeping privatisation of the NHS. Regardless of the outcome of this afternoon’s vote, the SNP will use it to strengthen that argument.