WHAT is going on with Police Scotland?

The force has come under severe criticism for its heavy handed, disproportionate and violent handling of protestors demonstrating outside an arms factory in Glasgow, which they believed to be involved in sending weaponry to Israel.

During the protest outside a Scottish woman was allegedly knocked unconscious and hospitalised after being hit with a police baton.

The 26-year-old required four staples to be put in to close-up the wound on her scalp.

An additional three protestors also needed medical interventions, allegedly due to injuries they received from police officers.

Video from the incident shows one police officer wielding a baton, pushing protesters and allegedly shouting: "Run. Run home. Run for your lives. Run."

READ MORE: 'Violent' Police Scotland response to Palestine protest condemned

The demonstration took place on July 3 outside the Thales factory in Govan.

More than 100 protesters blockaded the factory, calling on the company to end its links with the Israeli military.

The factory produces the Watchkeeper drone, developed in collaboration with Israeli arms company Elbit Systems.

Thales said it has a small-to-medium enterprise joint venture (SME JV) with Israeli company Elbit that supplies systems to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and does not supply the Israeli military or Israeli defence ministry.

Israeli armed forces drone attacks have been responsible for many deaths of civilians in Gaza.

More than 37,000 Palestinians, mostly innocent civilians, have died in Gaza since Israel began its assault on the territory in response to the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of over 1000 Israelis, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of over 200 more.

One of those attending the demonstration told The National that she and her friends, as well as uninvolved bystanders, were attacked by the police even though they were attempting to leave the demo.

The violent clashes between police and protesters came outside the Govan Cross shopping centre and Govan subway station around 35 minutes after the demonstration at the Thales arms factory nearby had been dispersed.

Emma Stewart told a reporter for this paper: "We were prevented from safely dispersing from Thales, and the police insisted on escorting us to Govan subway station while telling us we were free to leave.

“Then, as we tried to get on the subway, the police surged forward to attack us, arresting a further 11 people.

“This violence came from nowhere.

READ MORE: I saw Police Scotland violence. Who are they meant to be protecting?

“As police charged through us, they beat both protesters and onlookers with batons, used pepper spray and one could be heard shouting ‘Run for your lives.’ "Many of us were left badly injured.

“The police split one person's head with a baton, they required staples in hospital. Another had a broken nose and pepper-spray wounds.

“Many were left with heavy bruising across legs and torsos.

“Witnessing or experiencing this egregious and disproportionate response has been traumatising, as the police beat friends, colleagues and neighbours before our very eyes."

The incident comes on top of other recent questionable actions by Police Scotland.

While pleading that it suffers from a lack of resources and funding, Police Scotland still saw fit to spend over £750,000 investigating the alleged misuse of a smaller sum of crowdfunded money by the SNP.

The police presence following the protest in Govan was considerableThe police presence following the protest in Govan was considerable (Image: Facebook)

The force did this on the back of politically-motivated complaints.

There is a developing worrying picture of a police service which is out of control and which is increasingly willing to involve itself in political action, suppressing legitimate protest which is opposed to the policies of the British state and powerful business interests.

David Lammy struggles to find his backbone after becoming Foreign Secretary

New Foreign Secretary David Lammy spent much of the past few months defending Labour's decision not to support calls for an end to arms sales to Israel on the basis that it was up to the Conservative government to publish its legal advice on the matter.

Now that Lammy is in government, you might think it would be a simple matter for him to publish the legal advice and to settle definitively the question of whether British arms sales to Israel leave the UK at risk of being held legally complicit in wars crimes committed by Israel's armed forces with British arms and ammunition.

However, on Friday Lammy told the Commons that he had started a new “process” on his first day in office to assess the legality of Britain's continuing arms trade with Israel, amid fears the country could be committing war crimes in Gaza.

This very conveniently allows Lammy to continue to delay publishing the advice while the UK continues to arm Netanyahu's far-right government.

READ MORE: Labour slammed for continuing Israeli arms sales secrecy

The announcement came as Lammy told the Commons that the UK will restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was cut off by the previous Tory government after allegations were made by Israel that some of its staff were linked to Hamas.

An independent report found that Israel had failed to provide evidence for the claims, but the Conservative government still refused to restore funding to an agency whose work is critical in supplying food and medical supplies to the beleaguered and traumatised civilian population of Gaza.

It's not clear why Lammy needed a "new process" before he can release the legal advice.

The British government might have changed following the General Election on July 4, but the legal advice concerning the lawfulness of the British arms trade with Israel did not.

Same old Labour, so much for 'change'.

Global IT outage must be deep-state conspiracy, says Neil Oliver

Meanwhile right-wing conspiracy theorist and propagandalf Neil Oliver has been caught up in the global IT glitch which left passengers stranded at Edinburgh airport.

The outage was actually caused by a “defect” in an update for Microsoft Windows users, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said as they issued an update while “actively working” on a fix.

Naturally, that didn't stop Oliver speculating that it might be the work of some anti-Trump hacker.

Neil's beyond help.

Pity the poor passengers stuck at Edinburgh airport, it's bad enough being stuck in an airport when you should be en-route to your holiday.

It's a whole other level of hell to be stuck beside Neil Oliver ranting about how it's all part of some deep state plot.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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