ANDY Burnham will be met with protests when he visits Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe.
The Prime Minister is scheduled to speak at an “in conversation with” event at The Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh on August 19.
A demonstration has been called by the campaign group Edinburgh Action for Palestine after he sparked anger by failing to use the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
That refusal put him at odds with leading authorities on genocide such as the International Association of Genocide Scholars as well as both a United Nations special committee and a commission of inquiry.
Others to have called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide are Amnesty International, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Jerusalem-based B'Tselem, among other human rights groups.
The protest will also highlight Burnham’s acceptance of US requests to use British bases to bomb Iran.
Edinburgh Action for Palestine said: “Burnham and his newly appointed cabinet are engaged in more of the same war-mongering, genocide-supporting, far-right-pandering we witnessed during [Keir] Starmer’s reign.”
The protest is due to begin at 11am, with Burnham’s show to begin at 12.15pm, at The Stand in York Place, Edinburgh.
Asked whether he would use the term genocide in an interview prior to his election to Parliament in June, Burnham told The Guardian: “I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester.”
He added: “But I do have concerns about the disproportionate nature of what has happened in terms of the destruction, and there has to be a full process of investigation and accountability.”
The National revealed previously how 39% of Burnham’s Cabinet are supporters of the Labour Friends of Israel lobbying group.
He appointed the group’s former chair James Purnell as his chief of staff on entering Downing Street and previously told a leadership hustings – during his failed tilt in 2015 – that his first trip if he won would be to Israel.
In his first in-depth interview since becoming Prime Minister, Burnham told the BBC that he had found Donald Trump “really warm” during their first phone conversation but said he would be willing to contradict the US President if it was in the “national interest”.
