ACTIVISTS are demanding the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) drop its partnership with Baillie Gifford, slamming the investment firm for links to the Israeli military and fossil fuels industries.

Mothers Against Genocide Scotland and Art Workers for Palestine Scotland picketed the festival headquarters yesterday, holding placards displaying the names of Palestinian children killed in the Gaza genocide.

Campaigners renewed their years-long calls for the EIF to break with the firm, which they said has links to companies directly linked to the occupation in Palestine and Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Baillie Gifford holds shares in Babcock, which activists said has partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries on British military programmes.

The company also held stakes in French energy giant TotalEnergies and defence tech firm Anduril, the campaigners added.

They called on artists involved in the festival to come out against the partnership with the investment firm and for a boycott of the EIF entirely.

More than 700 artists, workers, and audience members have signed an open letter to the EIF asking they drop the partnership.

Yesterday’s protest follows a successful campaign asking the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) to end its sponsorship arrangement with Baillie Gifford.

Activists also shared allegations made by performers who took part in the EIF last year, saying organisers discouraged them from speaking publicly about the partnership.

They also slammed the Scottish government for failing to implement a motion passed in Parliament in September 2025, which called for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

At the protest, Scottish Greens MSP Kate Nevens said the government must “urgently end all contracts with companies complicit in the genocide” and companies involved in Israeli settlements in Palestine.

Baillie Gifford has called activist claims about their ties to foreign wars and climate-destroying oil firms “hugely misleading.”