Good evening! This week's edition of the In Common newsletter comes from Robin McAlpine
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Let me cut to the chase: A Tory backbencher stood up in Parliament in London and asked what legal advice Starmer had taken over his legal culpability on Gaza. The subtext: Is he confident he won't appear in handcuffs for providing material support to genocide? Here's my guess – Starmer, MacSweeny, Falconer, Lammy and the whole dirty bunch of them went for a cup of tea and had a snigger about it.
Then they got to thinking ... "We keep saying that it is for the International Court of Justice to determine if something is genocide, not us. Cool, but what happens if it finds it is a genocide?"
It really is looking increasingly like it with each passing day. God, even the Murdoch news group is now asking why the west is letting this happen.
Let's say this is legally established as a genocide, crimes against humanity or major war crimes, what then are the legal implications? I suspect Team Starmer never thought it would get to that. It has clearly believed it could facilitate the Israeli actions behind the scenes and bluff its way through the political consequences. But the legal consequences? Those aren't actually vague. You can't facilitate a genocide from the UK and remain inside the law.
This seems to have brought a sudden panic reaction, with the words getting sterner and the most inconsequential sanctions conceivable being brought forward suddenly. But the law isn't politics, or shouldn't be. It isn't just genocide which is illegal.
So here is my simply question; this is all equally and separately illegal in Scotland. What are we waiting for? Starmer, Lammy, Falconer – they have been doing what they have been doing because they believe themselves to be untouchable. Scotland could put them straight on that.
We could set up a commission of inquiry to set the terms for the prosecution of crimes relating to Gaza which have been committed in Scotland, by people who visit Scotland or in territory where Scotland has legal responsibility to uphold the law.
A senior legal figure could be asked to establish the threshold for future prosecutions based on actions, context and circumstances. For example, what would be the threshold for the prosecution of a firm which it could be proved was knowingly supplying "facilitating equipment" it had knowledge was likely to be used in a genocide?
What would be the threshold for arresting Israeli politicians? We're obliged by law to arrest those who have ICC warrants out against them, but just as Pinochet was arrested in Britain for war crimes (actually, based on a Spanish extradition request), we can arrest anyone who comes to Scotland and who we deem to have carried out war crimes. We can even seek extradition.
What is the threshold for people who fought in the IDF? What about anti-Palestinian hate speech? That has been ongoing with impunity throughout. What other groups, what other actions are potentially in the frame here? And above all, what about UK politicians? Do they have to kill babies with their own hands or is providing the targeting information enough?
The chilling effect this could have on the Starmer administration is significant. If the conditions were clearly set out for the threshold of evidence which would lead to his arrest in Scotland, it would surely play on his mind. It could force the hand of prosecutors elsewhere. It could set a precedent.
Above all, it would be something, a concrete action, an attempt to fight back against the evils of the world. And that is my bigger point here.
Because while it has been immeasurably better than Labour in moral terms over Gaza, what have the SNP actually done? They did a publicity shot with the Israeli ambassador, so clearly not a boycott. It continues to fund arms companies which supply Israel, so no kinds of sanctions.
And as best I can tell it hasn't even gone a far as say the Co-op or the Glasgow Film Theatre in taking a stance through its purchasing policy. The Co-op will no longer stock Israeli products, the GFT is boycotting companies with major investments in the territories occupied by Israel – the Scottish Government has tweeted things. I'm not aware of a single cancelled contract for anything.
The historic, biblical awfulness of what is happening and what has happened in Gaza has much more horror yet to reveal. The scale of the reckoning is enormous. Politicians behaved as if they could help with or at least turn a blind eye to the most heinous acts of inhumanity because modern politics revolves around impunity. Let's end the impunity.
Politics also revolves around hypocrisy, a world where saying things is more important than doing things. We've heard the UK Government's lies. We've heard all the Scottish Government's pious denouncement of the inhumanity of it all. But since it is Scotland's legal duty to hold those responsible to account no matter who they are, will the Scottish Government act? Or were they just words?
