A SCOTTISH Tory MP’s £4200 trip to Israel during the genocide in Gaza has been branded “sickening”.
Andrew Bowie, the MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, embarked on an all expenses paid trip to Israel between August 25 and 29 this year.
The trip was described as a “fact-finding political delegation” in Bowie’s MP register of interests, and was paid for by the Conservative Friends of Israel.
Bowie registered air travel, accommodation and hospitality for the visit to Israel as costing £4200. He told The National that he met with senior members of the Israel Defence Force (IDF) during the trip. The shadow Scottish secretary was not the only Tory MP to take part in the visit.
Nigel Huddleston, MP for Droitwich and Evesham, Lincoln Jopp, MP for Spelthorne, and Rebecca Smith, MP for South West Devon, all registered a visit to Israel on the same dates as Bowie.
All three separately estimated the value of the trip as £4500 in their updated register of interests in September. Jack Rankin, Tory MP for Windsor, also registered a trip to Israel on the same dates, a few weeks before his colleagues. He valued air travel, accommodation and hospitality at £4530.
Bowie posted about the trip on his social media, stating that it was a “deeply thought provoking visit” to Israel, the Gaza border and the West Bank.
The shadow Scottish secretary shared an image from the Nova Music Festival Memorial site, where Hamas militants killed 378 people on October 7 2023.
In total, 1195 Israelis and 79 foreign nationals were killed in the Hamas attack, over 4800 injured and 250 people taken hostage.
“Such complexities,” he wrote on X/Twitter. “But what is clear, the UK Govts decision to recognise statehood at this stage is being perceived as rewarding Hamas and terrorism. It is wrongheaded, shortsighted and foolhardy.”
A deeply thought provoking visit to Israel, the Gaza border and West Bank. Such complexities. But what is clear, the UK Govts decision to recognise statehood at this stage is being perceived as rewarding Hamas and terorrism. It is wrongheaded, shortsighted and foolhardy. 🎗️ pic.twitter.com/CEmzKNKHyI
— Andrew Bowie (@AndrewBowie_MP) August 30, 2025
The West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MP has been a vocal critic of Keir Starmer ’s recognition of the state of Palestine .
He also previously defended Israel’s “right” to block two Labour MPs from entering the West Bank, after politicians Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were detained and deported from Israel in April.
Official figures state that 58 people in Gaza were killed on August 29, while 308 were injured.
Since October 7, 66,225 Gazans have been killed and 168,938 injured. Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie said: “It’s sickening that while Palestinians suffer and die, MPs are taking costly and compromising trips funded by pro-Israel pressure groups who are trying to get a bigger voice in the corridors of power.
“The fact that so many Palestinians were killed during the time Mr Bowie visited underlines the horrors of the assault on Gaza, but it was not unique. Atrocities on this scale are being inflicted against Palestinians almost every day.
“I urge Andrew Bowie and every other MP who has taken thousands of pounds worth of hospitality from these groups to ask themselves if they really want to be a friend of a genocidal apartheid state and the racist and far-right government that runs it.”
In response to Harvie’s comments, Bowie said he was “proud” to be a friend of Israel, which he described as “the only democracy in the Middle East.
“During the trip, we visited the villages that had seen hundreds of innocent men, women and children raped, humiliated and murdered,” Bowie said. “I saw with my own eyes the Nova music festival site where young men and women, who had been doing nothing more than enjoying a music festival, were gunned down by genocidal terrorists.
“As well as observing aid go in through a Gaza checkpoint, I visited the West Bank and met with leading voices in the Palestinian community.
“I engaged with leading government advisors, politicians, including members of the opposition in the Knesset, members of the Palestinian Authority, journalists, senior members of the IDF and, most powerfully, families of those still being held hostage.”
He added: “The ill-informed, hate-filled language from failed former government minister and ex-leader of the extremist Greens, Patrick Harvie, betrays his and their ignorance of a country, a people and a conflict which he might do well to visit.
"He should spend more time examining the facts of the situation rather than issuing clickbait-style, student-level political statements that appeal to the very worst elements of Scottish society.”
Bowie is not the only Scottish Tory MP who has accepted an all-expenses-paid trip with Conservative Friends of Israel this year. John Lamont, MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk , went on a “fact-finding political delegation” from February 17 to February 21 2025.
His register of interests values accommodation, flights and hospitality at £3200. Richard Holden, shadow transport secretary and MP for Basildon and Billericay, and Matt Vickers, MP for Stockton West, registered trips to Israel on the same dates, both valuing each trip at £3200.
Andrew Mitchell (below), the former deputy foreign secretary and Tory MP for Sutton Coldfield, registered a trip to Israel between May 26 and May 29 2025.
Valued at £5878, Mitchell’s register declared £950 for hotel accommodation, £884 for flights, £320 for a “VIP transfer to the airport”, £646 for local transport, “tour guides and VIP service/transfer”, as well as £755 for flights for his adviser, and £1400 for a hotel room, local transport and tour guides for the member of staff.
Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, who visited Israel on the same dates as Mitchell, valued his trip at £3000.
Overall, Conservative Friends of Israel have paid £40,708 so far this year for 10 Tory MPs to visit Israel during the genocide.
We previously told how five Labour MPs, and peer Luciana Berger, failed to declare an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel and Palestine in May by the lobbying group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
They posed for a photo with Israeli president Isaac Herzog who, during his controversial visit to the UK in September where he met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, denied there is a genocide and famine in Gaza.
Just a few days later, a United Nations Human Rights Council commission concluded that Israel had committed four of the five “genocidal acts” defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The report came a week after the UK Government ruled that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, in contradiction of a mounting body of international experts who say otherwise.
