UK
Police called as Palestine protesters disrupt John Swinney Fringe event
Despite the First Minister’s record of Gaza advocacy, demonstrators angrily called on him to brand the crisis a ‘genocide’
August 4, 2025 13:51
Despite the First Minister’s record of Gaza advocacy, demonstrators angrily called on him to brand the crisis a ‘genocide’
August 4, 2025 13:51Police intervened on Saturday when pro-Palestinian protesters disturbed an Edinburgh Festival Fringe event featuring First Minister John Swinney.
Swinney was being interviewed on stage at the Stand comedy club in York Place by comedian Susan Morrison when demonstrators entered the venue and disrupted the event, demanding the First Minister label the crisis in Gaza a “genocide” and stop state funding for arms companies.
Videos posted on social media show the demonstrators holding up posters bearing images of emaciated children while arguing with police and audience members. There were reportedly five interruptions over the course of the hour, with two groups simultaneously shouting at Swinney during the final disruption.
One woman accused the First Minister of hypocrisy for not speaking out about the heavy metal band Disturbed – whose lead singer was pictured signing an Israeli bomb – but calling it inappropriate for the Irish rap group Kneecap to perform at the Trnsmt festival, according to Scotland’s Herald newspaper. Swinney reportedly said his comments on Kneecap had been in response to questions from the media.
During the event, billed as a conversation about "life, art, politics and Scotland's future", during Swinney expressed the desire “that Scotland – the birthplace of the Enlightenment – remains a country of robust debate and inquiry”.
Swinney, who has repeatedly spoken about the crisis in Gaza, called for a ceasefire, and even lobbied the UK government to recognise a Palestinian state, told journalists after the event: "It's quite clear that there is a genocide in Palestine – it can't be disputed.
"I have seen reports of terrible atrocities which have the character of being genocide. I've expressed that and obviously it's not reached all those individuals, but that's my feeling,” he said.
In a statement on its social media, the Stand said it had no prior knowledge of the protest but as a company it is "fully opposed to the genocide" and has taken "practical steps to loudly support Palestinian human rights.”
Shout! Rage! Everything is Palestine! Shout shout! Rage rage!
— habibi (@habibi_uk) August 3, 2025
Idiots wrecking an Edinburgh Fringe event featuring John Swinney.
If Britain wants its public life back, it will have to take it from horrid creeps. They won't stop until they are stopped. pic.twitter.com/mDpmpSusz7
The incident comes after Jewish comedians Philip Simon and Rachel Creeger, who had been set to perform at the Fringe, were de-platformed by the popular venue Whistlebinkies over purported “safety concerns” a week before the festival began.
Today, however, Creeger announced that her show “Ultimate Jewish Mother” had been offered “new homes”, It will now be staged at The Big Tent at Hoots @ Nicolson Square Gardens from 7 to17 August and Dirty Martini at Le Monde from 18 to 24 August.
Writing in the Scotsman, poet Jenny Lindsay characterised Creeger and Simon’s de-platforming – and the subsequent “silence from Scotland’s artists” – as evidence of the country’s tacit allowance for “any dissenting voices against the self-identifying ‘progressive’ side to be pilloried, mocked and economically sabotaged.”
Lindsay added: “High on the undoubted virtue of having an important cause (ending war)... such activists can be frighteningly relentless. An arts world lacking courage has no chance against them.”
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.