SNP MP Lara Bird says UK not looking to save Palestinian lives

The UK Government is not “actively looking to save Palestinian lives”, SNP MP Lara Bird has said at her party’s conference in Aberdeen.

The Arbroath and Broughty Ferry MP, elected earlier this year after working as a barrister and for the Britain Palestine Project, told a fringe event she was “angry” with the Government’s response to the ongoing crisis in Gaza. She directed her criticism at Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who announced plans to sanction Israel last month.

Ms Bird said: “I am so angry that a few weeks ago I had to sit in the House of Commons and listen to Ed Miliband stand up with all the audacity that he had and pretend that the information that he was using to make the decision to sanction Israel was brand new information. To pretend that there was nothing that the UK Government could have possibly done before this point.”

“Be under no pretence, because Ed Miliband’s statement might show a small change in narrative from the UK Government, but this is not a government that is actively looking to save Palestinian lives. Because if it was, it could have done that already – it could have taken action.”

She warned she would keep that anger in Westminster while representing Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and the SNP. Britain’s foreign policy should put clear national interest and decisive action first, not delayed statements that leave people waiting. A government that claims moral purpose must match words with earlier steps when lives are at stake, rather than arriving late to the table.

Conference platform and Yousaf remarks

Former first minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf also spoke at the same event, chaired by his wife and SNP councillor Nadia El-Nakla. Her parents were trapped in Gaza for a month at the start of the conflict in 2023 while he held office in Scotland.

Yousaf told the packed room the turnout was a sign of “hope”. “We must never lose that hope because the Palestinian people can’t afford for us to lose hope.” He said Scotland has “time and time again” proven “we stand on the side of the oppressed”.

The Evening Standard reported the exchanges from the Aberdeen fringe. Bird’s charge lands on a Government already facing questions over timing and substance on Gaza. Miliband’s sanctions announcement came after months of pressure, yet the MP insisted earlier moves were possible and that the latest shift remains limited.

What happens next sits in Westminster. Bird pledged to keep pressing the issue as an SNP voice. The Government has offered no fresh timetable beyond the sanctions step already set out. Conference season will keep the row in view as parties trade claims over who acted and when.

The core dispute remains the gap Bird described between rhetoric and earlier practical steps. Scottish Nationalist voices used the Aberdeen platform to keep that gap open and visible.

Original source: Evening Standard