National, twitter | BREAKING: SNP MSP John Mason has had the whip withdrawn following claims he made about a genocide in Gaza

by SafetyStartsHere

23 comments

  1. “After years of his shite, we finally snapped,” an SNP Spokesperson told the National. “We appreciate that he is ‘well-regarded in his constituency branch’ and that he ‘has done a lot for his community’ and is a ‘useful member of the Finance committee’, but there’s only so much of his earnest plonkering and shite takes even we can put up with. At least twice a year we wake up, check twitter and find ourselves thinking, ‘What the fuck, man? What the fuck?'”

    ^ Or so I imagine.

  3. Thank fuck, this has been long overdue. What is the chance this is gonna turn into another culture war?

  4. Herald have coverage [confirming the story here](https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24524876.john-mason-snp-whip-withdrawn-gaza-comment/)

    >John Mason has had the SNP whip withdrawn after a ‘flippant’ and ‘utterly abhorrent’ social media comment about the war in Gaza.

    >The MSP for Glasgow Shettleston sparked a furious reaction from within his own party as he responded on X, formerly Twitter, to a Herald story about a meeting with Israel’s deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky in Edinburgh last week.

    >Both Mr Mason and Angus Robertson have been criticised for meeting with Ms Grudsky, with the party consistently calling for a ceasefire in the occupied Gaza Strip.

    >Following the October 7 attacks, Israel launched an offensive on the enclave which has led to the deaths of over 40,000 Palestinians and led to a charge of genocide being filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.

    >Dismissing concerns that the country may be in breach of the United Nations genocide convention, Mr Mason wrote: “If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed ten times as many.”

    >

    >After being approached by The Herald, the SNP announced on Saturday that it had withdrawn the whip with immediate effect.

    >A spokesperson for the SNP chief whip said: “To flippantly dismiss the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians is completely unacceptable. There can be no room in the SNP for this kind of intolerance.”The chief whip has today withdrawn the whip from John Mason MSP with immediate effect, pending internal Parliamentary Group due process.”The SNP Group will now meet to discuss the matter, with a recommendation that the whip be suspended from John Mason for a fixed period of time because of this utterly abhorrent comment.”

    >

    >Mr Mason’s post drew widespread condemnation, including from within his own party.

    >Ian Blackford, the former Westminster leader, wrote: “Forty thousand plus dead in Gaza and you tweet this. You are not fit for public office. You are an embarrassment and not fit to represent anyone. You glorify killing and murder with your obtuse comment. Just go and do it now.”

    >David Birkett, the SNP’s Peterhead organiser said: “There’s being a wee bit out of touch and then there’s being outright thoughtless and offensive.

    >”I’m not keen on sharing the SNP with John anymore.”

    >James Dornan, MSP for Glasgow Cathcart, posted: “Oh John give it a rest man. That’s a disgraceful tweet.”

    >It comes after SNP Friends of Palestine, the group headed by Nadia El-Nakla, the wife of former First Minister Humza Yousaf, criticised Mr Robertson for meeting with the deputy ambassador.

    >They said: “While we know Mr Robertson called for a ceasefire, we cannot condone his statement advocating for further co-operation between Scotland and Israel, especially while Israel continues its genocide in Gaza and ongoing persecution of Palestinians in the West Bank.

    >“The PM of Israel has an arrest warrant from the ICC [International Criminal Court] pending and the ICJ are continuing their investigation into the genocide in Palestine by Israel.

    >”We cannot, and should not have normal relations with Israel. We would urge the party to issue an apology and a guarantee, especially for our Palestinian citizens, that this normalisation of the state of Israel will not happen again.”

  5. Will he just completely sidestep Alba and go for the Tories? If he really wants to make a spiteful, dramatic statement he could go for the nuclear option of Reform.

    Whilst in jest I do wonder…

  7. Obviously a very good thing, but you’ve got to seriously question why this took so long

  8. Honestly not giving the SNP too much credit for this because he never saw any consequences for any of the other awful things he said but thank fuck he’s finally out either way.

  9. Can we have a recall system yet ffs. This revolting fossil can be as vile as he likes while sitting pretty in the knowledge that there is a grand total of fuck and all that can be done to remove him.

  10. How sad, oh well. In all seriousness, well deserved to take the whip away.

    Now if the SNP are in the mood to trim the fat of their parliamentary party and get rid of those with questionable views, theres a certain deputy FM who’s overstayed their welcome.

  11. I feel very sorry for the SNP, who could not possibly have predicted that John Mason would say something moronic and stupid or have taken any action to deal with him before now.

  12. This is the straw that broke the camels back?

    Not him harassing vulnerable women outside hospitals or some of the other shite he’s been posting in the past?!

  13. Only about 20 years after it should have happened, so congrats to the SNP, I guess.

    (Doesn’t seem to be a permanent withdrawal, still)

  14. Plenty of us calling for this as soon as John made those horrific pro-genocide comments.

    Glad the SNP is still listening to Scotland, shame about all the other parties.

  15. SNP literally met and welcomed the Israeli ambassador the other day and were all smiles with them.

    They’re complete hypocrites lol.

  17. He has provided a useful distraction so John Swinney gets to act but avoid dealing with Angus ‘mi5’ Robertson. My SNP friends are raging at this deliberate betrayal by Robertson and how just about the only thing the SNP have got right recent, their stance on Israel’s war crimes against Palestinian civilians has been undermined by this lazy, arrogant oaf.

  18. About fucking time, he’s my local MSP and he is awful.

  19. He’s had the whip withdrawn now?

    After years of expressing fundamentaist views??

    Anyone else smell a dead cat tactic?

  20. So challenging the accusation that Israel is committing genocide gets you booted from the SNP now?

    Has Swinney even publicly accused Israel of genocide?

  22. Regardless of your thoughts on the conflict, it was a spectacularly crass and thoughtless thing to say.

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