Today, thousands of people will take to the streets of Glasgow, united by a call for an end to Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza.

It won’t just be a condemnation of eight months of destruction, but also of the UK government’s role in perpetuating it.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed as a direct result of the war, including 15,000 children, while schools, hospitals and homes have been bombed into rubble. Whole neighbourhoods have been made completely uninhabitable.

READ NEXT: Patrick Harvie: The Greens will always work for the common good

It is impossible to see the ­images and footage coming from Gaza without feeling deep anger at the inhumanity on display, but also a burning desire to stop it.

It has also exposed the very worst of UK government policy. They have shown total indifference and disregard to Palestinian suffering while refusing to even support calls for a ceasefire.

Unfortunately, the Labour Party has not been much better. It was only four days after the brutal massacres by Hamas on October 7 that Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, told LBC that he believed Israel had the right to cut off food, water, electricity and aid to Gaza, which amounts to a collective punishment of the entire civilian population.

It was a callous and appalling thing for anyone to say, but especially a former human rights lawyer who is standing to be the next Prime Minister.

In total, 250 days have passed since then, and, in that time, we have seen some of the worst war crimes of the 21st century inflicted on a vulnerable and young population that has been trapped with nowhere to go.

Yet despite everything that has happened, the UK government and others have continued to arm, support and embolden Israeli forces, and have effectively given them a blank cheque for atrocities.

READ NEXT: Patrick Harvie: Real change will happen with more Green councillors in City Chambers

UK Ministers often manage to talk a good game about their commitment to human rights. But they have done all of this at the same time as Israeli forces are being investigated for breaking genocide laws by the International Criminal Court.

It is a moral disgrace, but it is characteristic of a foreign policy that has long been based on military aggression and has treated human beings as pawns and the rights of vulnerable people as optional rather than fundamental.

The UK’s contempt for the human rights of the most vulnerable can be seen here at home, as well as across the world, as I saw on Tuesday, when I visited Maslow’s, a refugee charity in Govan.

They run a local shop and community hub that helps and supports people seeking asylum and those who are on the receiving end of the UK government’s brutal anti-migrant policies.

In a multicultural city like Glasgow, there are thousands of people and families who have been directly impacted by the ferocity of the hostile environment that has been purposely created in Downing Street.

One of Glasgow’s proudest moments was in May 2021, when residents in Kenmure Street rallied together to prevent the Home Office from deporting their friends and neighbours.

It was an amazing show of humanity and solidarity, but it was one that would never have needed to happen if we had a UK government that showed any concern or care for the rights of refugees.

It will be a similar story today, when thousands of people march for Palestine while the government in Westminster continues to make a terrible situation even worse.

Dawn raids, detention vans and racist policies like the Rwanda deportation flights should have no place in any progressive vision for Scotland or the UK.

They are among the worst legacies of this Tory government and are part of the same shameful system that has seen Palestinian rights treated as secondary to the profits of arms dealers.

It is a system that the Scottish Greens stand against and one that we hope people across Glasgow and beyond will vote to end on July 4.