Tory MSP has ‘no regrets’ over challenging Yousaf on Gaza funding

Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr has insisted he has “no regrets” for saying Humza Yousaf may have had a conflict of interest in sending funding to Gaza.

The Scottish government gave £250,000 to the UNRWA aid agency in November 2023, while the first minister’s parents-in-law were trapped in Gaza.

Mr Kerr said it suggested Mr Yousaf was “prepared to bend the rules” if he had overridden official advice.

The Scottish government has said that the funding decision was taken by Mr Yousaf following advice from officials.

The SNP’s deputy leader Keith Brown has now called on Rishi Sunak to block Stephen Kerr from standing as a Westminster candidate at the next general election.

However, Mr Kerr insisted he was absolutely right to question why the £250,000 of funding went to UNWRA when government officials had initially suggested £100,000 to £200,000 should instead go to another aid agency, Unicef.

He told BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show: “No-one who watched the trauma that the first minister went through in those days and weeks when his family were stuck, locked, in Gaza… of course there was an issue of personal interest.

“And therefore it’s not wrong in the slightest (to challenge the first minister).

“That being the case, the question is very simple – what happened and why did it happen?”

Mr Yousaf posted a series of messages on social media platform X on Saturday, in which he said the newspaper story was an attempt to link him to terrorism.

He said: “Most of my political life, I’ve battled insinuations from sections of the media desperate to link me to terrorism despite campaigning my whole life against it.

“Due to my faith & race, there will always be those, particularly on the far-right, who will desperately try to “prove” my loyalties lie elsewhere. That I am a fifth columnist in the only country I call home, the country I love and the country I have the privilege of leading.”

The Scottish government said civil servants had presented funding options to the first minister “in the usual way”.

A spokesperson said: “All those options, by definition, were open to ministers to choose. The decision being sought was which option ministers wished to choose.

“The first minister made that decision in the standard way. No ministerial direction was necessary, nor was one ever sought.”

But Stephen Kerr, who sites who sits on Holyrood’s standards committee, maintains the first minister may have breached the Scottish ministerial code.

He said: “I do not regret doing my job as a parliamentarian in scrutinising the work of the Scottish government, including the work of the first minister.

“That is why we we have parliamentarians, that is my job and I will continue doing it.”

The SNP’s deputy leader Keith Brown has said Rishi Sunak should block Stephen Kerr’s bid to become a Tory MP at the next Westminster general election.

He pointed to a recent statement the prime minister made outside 10 Downing Street in which he spoke about trying to stop hatred and division.

Mr Brown also said politicians should “know the consequences of smears like this”.

He told BBC Scotland News: “Anybody looking at the first minister’s social media timeline will see the nature of the racist abuse that he gets.

“And I think this is a scandalous way to try and misrepresent the granting of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.

“Rishi Sunak, if he is to be taken at his word, should denounce this and should sack Stephen Kerr as a Westminster candidate. He is unfit to be so.”

UNRWA has since been at the centre of controversy surrounding Israeli accusations that members of its staff were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas that triggered the fighting.

Several countries, including the UK, have announced a pause in support for the relief agency while an investigation takes place after the allegations emerged in January.

However, those accusations only became known several weeks after the Scottish government funding announcement had been made.