Sir Keir Starmer has called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza to try to quell a Labour party revolt

[Celerity]

Labour calls for ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza

In an attempt to quell a party rebellion, Sir Keir Starmer personally lobbied MPs to back his amendment urging Israel and Hamas to down their weapons

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-immediate-ceasefire-gaza-israel-war-keir-starmer-wlzsfrw6w

https://archive.is/xcCpc

Sir Keir Starmer will seek to stave off a Labour revolt over his stance on Gaza by calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. In an escalation of language that diverges from the UK government’s position, Labour urged both Israel and Hamas to put down their weapons and end a four-month battle immediately. The intervention before a crunch vote on Wednesday in parliament appeared to win over wavering shadow ministers who were considering quitting if Labour did not call for an immediate ceasefire.

However, wrangling over parliamentary procedure could still blight Labour’s chance to force a vote on its new position and threaten the carefully-crafted attempt at party unity. Starmer personally lobbied MPs to back his amendment, with David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and Lisa Nandy, the shadow international development minister, also holding talks with colleagues on Tuesday. “It’s a good, credible motion and frontbenchers will be happy to vote for it,” said one shadow minister who had been pushing strongly behind the scenes for Starmer to toughen up his stance on Israel.

Gaza ceasefire vote: Tory and SNP MPs storm out of Commons

At a meeting on Tuesday, the shadow cabinet signed off Labour’s new position — articulated in an amendment to a motion by the Scottish National Party at Westminster that will be debated on Wednesday. Labour insiders were bullish that there would be a small rebellion at most, confined only to a handful of traditionally-unruly backbench MPs who are prepared to back the SNP motion. Senior Labour sources predicted the party would avoid a repeat of the embarrassment suffered last November, when a fifth of the parliamentary party rebelled and ten frontbenchers quit to back a similar SNP motion.

However, the Labour left mobilised to accuse Starmer of acting too slowly. A spokesman for the left-wing pressure group Momentum said that Starmer’s statement was “so conditional and caveated, the Labour Leadership is giving cover for Israel’s brutal war to continue”. A member of Labour’s ruling national executive committee, Jessica Barnard, also said it was a “total moral failure that it has taken the loss of 30,000 Palestinians lives to arrive here”.

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