Should Angus Robertson have apologised for meeting Israeli ambassador?

After a terrible result at the general election, the SNP should be using their annual get-together in two weeks to try and work out what went wrong and how to fix it in time for 2026. 

Instead, as one senior source told me over the weekend, John Swinney is on course for a “conference from hell.”

In all my years covering SNP politics, I’m not sure I’ve seen the party so angry at one of their own as they are at Angus Robertson. 

Some delegates are even tabling motions for conference calling for the Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs to be investigated by the party’s conduct committee.

What’s really been striking is that this anger has come from some normally super loyal footsoldiers.

The Scottish Government has not given a read out of the talks between Robertson and Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK.

But John Swinney last week said Robertson accepted the meeting request with the diplomat “on the basis it would provide an opportunity to convey our consistent position on the killing and suffering of innocent civilians in the region.”

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Of course, Ms Grudsky Eskten did not mention the Scottish Government’s “consistent position on the killing and suffering of innocent civilians in the region” when she posted a picture of her and Robertson on social media. 

In her tweet, she said the two “discussed the unique commonalities between Israel and Scotland” and possible cooperation “in the fields of technology, culture and renewable energy.”

As Stewart McDonald, the party’s former defence spokesman, pointed out on social media, Ms Grudsky Ekstein “wants to show her domestic following that she’s operating on her professional terms.”

“A photo with a smiling envoy was a mistake,” he wrote on X, ”And an unusual one for someone as experienced as Angus.

“As was allowing the embassy to break news of the meeting and what was discussed. But this is what embassies do: they want to show their domestic audience that they’re engaging internationally on friendly terms.”

But could the Scottish Government have said “no, not now”?

Dr Kirsty Hughes, an academic specialising in international relations thinks so.

“There's no need to explain and that would have been the obvious thing to do,” she told me.

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“Given John Swinney says the point of this meeting was to underline the Scottish Government’s views on a ceasefire, then this was not a meeting that needed to happen in that the Scottish Government’s clear and strong position is already known.

“The Scottish Government has absolutely no influence or role in this, and clearly that would not be why the Israeli embassy was seeking for this meeting.”

While Robertson will be hoping his apology is enough to cool some of the calls for his head, Dr Hughes says there are still some questions needing to be answered. 

“You have to wonder, ask what the deputy ambassador said she wanted the meeting for when she asked for the meeting. 

“Did she mention culture, technology, and diaspora then? 

“Why did the Scottish Government let the Israeli embassy dictate the agenda? 

“Why no foresight on how this would look - it was never going to be secret? And did Angus Robertson actually agree to further cooperation on the issues she mentions in her tweet? “This surely needs an answer.”

Angus Robertson pictured with Israeli deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky Ekstein (Image: X)
This is the thing. Angus Robertson is no idiot. Neither is John Swinney. 

Surely they must have known details of the meeting would come out. Surely they must have known that if it was the embassy that shared the details first then it would be with the embassy’s narrative.

Did they think nobody would notice or did they underestimate the reaction from the party? 

The SNP has never shied away from engaging with difficult regimes. Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon courted the Chinese. 

Humza Yousaf invited Turkey’s President Erdoğan to Scotland for a visit. The man whose regime has overseen a brutal crackdown on the country's Kurdish community, eroded judicial independence, curbed freedom of speech, and jailed journalists and politicians, was on a “human rights journey," the former first minister said. 

“Engagement is fundamental to diplomacy,” Stewart McDonald wrote in his thoughtful defence of Robertson. “And if we’re not engaged in diplomacy then we’re just not serious. It’s as simple as that. It is the Scottish Government’s job to be engaged, but on proper terms - and that’s what should’ve happened here.”