Calls are mounting for Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar to publicly sever ties with the Tony Blair Institute after revelations linking the organisation to a deeply disturbing Gaza plan.
The Financial Times has reported that staff from the Institute took part in developing a proposal for Gaza that allegedly involved paying hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes.
The SNP has called the plan sickening and accused the Institute of being involved in discussions that amount to ethnic cleansing.
With Labour’s senior teams widely understood to be closely linked to the Institute, the SNP says both the UK and Scottish Labour leaders must come clean.
Stephen Flynn MP, the SNP’s Westminster Leader, said the revelations raise real and urgent questions.
He called on Starmer and Sarwar to publicly condemn the former Labour Prime Minister and his Institute.
He also challenged both leaders to disclose the full extent of their dealings with the organisation and to commit to cutting all funding and influence ties immediately.
Flynn said the Scottish Labour Party has reportedly sought strategic advice from the Tony Blair Institute ahead of the next Holyrood election.
That connection, he warned, must now be scrutinised in light of these explosive claims.
The SNP also raised longstanding concerns about how the Institute is funded, pointing to its financial backing from regimes with damaging human rights records.
Flynn described the situation as another dark chapter in what he called Tony Blair’s shameful legacy in the Middle East.
He said the revelations show that the Institute was present during the development of a plan to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza.
“This was a plan to steal people’s land and livelihoods,” Flynn said.
“If the Labour Party does not immediately cut ties with the Tony Blair Institute, it will be impossible to take them seriously on the future of a two-state solution.”
He also criticised Labour’s slow response in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
And he pointed out that the current UK Labour Government continues to authorise arms sales to Israel during a period of what he called collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
“These revelations are part of a wider failure,” Flynn said.
“A failure to stand up for the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, and a failure to show leadership when it’s needed most.”
The pressure is now firmly on Starmer and Sarwar to respond.
