SNP leader Humza Yousaf and David Cameron have been rowing about Humza’s recent meeting with Erdogan at COP28, which failed to include an FCDO official and therefore broke protocol. That’s because the Scottish government isn’t authorised to conduct foreign policy – even on Humza’s pointless trips to Brussels to “prepare the ground” for rejoining the EU, Foreign Office diplomats have to be present. That doesn’t stop the SNP spaffing cash on glory projects abroad…

The Scottish Government is currently financing nine “Scottish International Offices” to run as sham embassies abroad. Spend on the offices has risen from £7.6 million in 2019/20 to £9.1 million this year with ScotGov even openening a brand new “Scotland House” in Copenhagen. All while Scottish public service budgets are cut by the SNP…

On top of that the SNP spends £10 million annually on an “International Development Fund”, which operates programmes in Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, and Pakistan. That isn’t the end of the SNP’s foreign affairs posturing – why does the SNP need a “Head of Trade Policy” when the Scottish Government has no trade responsibilities whatsoever?

Cameron has threated to withdraw FCDO support from Scotland for further meetings, which got a petulant response from Yousaf. He today complained that “for Lord Cameron, an unelected lord, to decide what the elected government of Scotland can do internationally I think is unacceptable and to threaten to curtail our international engagement is just petty“. Ignoring the basic principles of devolved government…