Humza Yousaf feels ‘powerless’ to protect family members trapped in Gaza – and he’s ‘angry’ at UK foreign secretary
As first minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf sets many of the rules by which millions of Scots live their lives.
But when I interviewed him in Glasgow on Friday ahead of the Scottish National Party’s annual conference, what I saw before me was a husband and father who felt “powerless” to protect his family.
There were of course questions about the SNP’s dire polling; their by-election defeat to a resurgent Labour Party; the defection of an SNP Westminster MP to the Conservatives this week; Mr Yousaf’s divisive – and shifting – independence plan; and the drag anchor former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest and wider police investigation into the SNP was having on the party.
But the primary concern for the first minister when we met in Glasgow was for the safety of his wife Nadia’s parents, her brother and his children, trapped in Gaza and fearful for their lives.
Follow live: Gazans told ‘go south if you want to live’
That morning, Mr Yousaf shared a tearful video of his mother-in-law Elizabeth El-Nakla, in which she spoke of the Gazans’ plight as Israel warned one million people to vacate the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
“Everybody from Gaza is moving towards where we are. One million people, no food, no water. Where are you going to put them?” she asked.
“Where is humanity? Where’s people’s hearts in this world, to let his happen in this day and age? May God help us. Goodbye.”
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Humza Yousaf’s mother-in-law ‘trapped’ in Gaza
Mr Yousaf’s interview round with news outlets ahead of the conference is interrupted by phone calls with his family.
The first minister hasn’t slept and is tearful in our interview when he talks of how his wife and daughters are dealing with the situation.
He tells me he has promised his four-year daughter that her grandmother will be home for Halloween to paint her face as she does every year, even though he knows it’s a promise he might not be able to keep.
He says he’s shared the video because he feels “powerless and helpless”. “The only thing I can do is share their story,” he says/
To that end, the media round before the SNP conference has become far less about Scottish politics and far more about global matters.
The first minister tells me that he is publicising the plight of his own family to try to help all those trapped in Gaza as he demands Israel open up humanitarian corridors “immediately”.
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Thousands flee northern Gaza
“[It’s an] appeal to the international community, to set up international corridors, to end collective punishment, to allow supplies to come in, to allow the innocent people of Gaza to come out. That’s all I can do,” he said.
“What cannot happen, regardless of [Israel’s] military tactic, is for innocent men, women and children to pay the price. What has to happen now, immediately, today is the opening up of a humanitarian corridor.
“The humanitarian corridor has to allow Gazans, innocent men, women and children to leave and has to allow supplies, medical supplies, food, fuel, clear drinking water to come in.”
“Collective punishment cannot be justified. Neither legally or morally can it be justified.”
The first minister hasn’t heard from the prime minister, while the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly hasn’t responded to a letter from Mr Yousaf about the situation of his family and other Scots.
Mr Yousaf says it makes him “angry” and “disappointed” that he hasn’t been afforded that from a foreign secretary who visited Israel just this week.
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Cleverly runs for cover in Israel
Undoubtedly and understandably, Mr Yousaf goes into the SNP party conference almost completely preoccupied by his family’s predicament.
But when delegates gather in Aberdeen this weekend, there will be plenty of discussion too about Mr Yousaf’s first six months and the dire polling the party is enduring.
The last time there was a UK general election, Ms Sturgeon’s SNP was polling 45% and Labour was back in third at 18%.
Now the SNP is on 32% to 34%, with its lead down to 2 to 3% over Labour.
Meanwhile, the party is divided over what its independence strategy should be.
Ms Sturgeon’s position was that if the SNP achieved more than 50% of the votes in the Westminster elections, the SNP would have a mandate for another independence referendum (how she’d get the UK government on board is another matter).
Mr Yousaf’s attempt to lower the bar and claim a mandate if the SNP win the most seats in Scotland at the next general election is now looking dubious, with suggestions this week at conference that the leader might switch to saying the SNP must win a “majority” – 29 plus seats – to claim a mandate.
Read more:
Gaza ‘on brink of collapse’
‘Highly likely’ British hostages held by Hamas
Britain, France and the deep roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Whichever way, the idea that the first minister can claim his party is in a position to open formal independence negotiations should they lose 20 seats in a general election (the party currently has 48 MPs), seems ludicrous (he strongly disagreed with me when I put that to him).
Poor polling, a defection, an independence plan undecided and going nowhere, after six months in the job, Mr Yousaf must make progress to move beyond probation with his party.
But for now, the personal has to come first and Mr Yousaf will be hoping next week his political family will rally behind him.
Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.
The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).
Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin
Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.
It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Laws
The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.
26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US
Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.
Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.
Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws
Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Related: North Carolina bills would add crypto to state’s retirement system
Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws
According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Additional reporting by Helen Partz.
Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again
Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?
The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
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