Labour in meltdown over backing for Israel: Keir Starmer faces anger of Muslim and other pro-Palestine MPs after dodging mentioning Middle East crisis at PMQs – with 150 councillors demanding he calls for ceasefire

Keir Starmer is today desperately trying to dampen the flames of a major Labour rebellion over his backing for Israel in the conflict in Gaza – after he ducked out of avoiding the carnage in the Middle East at PMQs.

The opposition leader is meeting with his Muslim MPs and peers this afternoon as he tries to defuse anger from pro-Palestinian backbenchers about his strong stance on the right to respond to Hamas terror attacks. 

It comes after he used all his six questions this lunchtime to target Rishi Sunak over domestic issues including last week’s by-election defeats as splits on foreign affairs look to be deepening within his own party.

Sir Keir He is also embroiled in a bitter row with a mosque in Wales after community leaders accused him of ‘gravely misrepresenting’ their discussions during a visit at the weekend.

Long-standing tensions within Labour have flared since the atrocities in Israel, with a slew of councillors quitting and left-wing MPs deeply unhappy. 

A letter from 150 councillors this morning demanded he calls for a ceasefire, which the UK and US have not done because it would prevent Israel acting against Hamas.  

Rishi Sunak used PMQs to back ‘specific pauses’ in the conflict between Israel and Hamas to allow British nationals to escape Gaza and let aid in but rejected calls for a wider stop to hostilities. 

Despite Sir Keir avoiding the subject, Labour’s shadow women and equalities frontbencher Yasmin Qureshi asked: ‘How many more innocent Palestinian people must die before this prime minister calls for a humanitarian ceasefire? ‘

Keir Starmer (right) is scrambling to quell a growing Labour meltdown over his backing for Israel today. He failed to ask Rishi Sunak (left) at PMQs

A letter from 150 councillors this morning demanded he calls for a ceasefire, which the UK and US have not done because it would prevent Israel acting against Hamas

A number of leading Labour MPs have suffered local councillor resignations in their constituencies over the party’s stance on the Middle East crisis

A total of 37 Labour MPs have signed a parliamentary motion expressing their ‘deep alarm’ at Israel’s military bombardment and siege of Gaza. The motion, tabled by former shadow minister Richard Burgon, also attacks the ‘collective punishment of the Palestinian people’ and demands an immediate ceasefire

Sir Keir is embroiled in a bitter row with a mosque in Wales after community leaders accused him of ‘gravely misrepresenting’ their discussions during a visit at the weekend

A Labour spokesman denied she had diverted from the party’s position against a blanket ceasefire, saying it was framed as a question. 

The party said it supported calls for ‘humanitarian pauses’ by the PM and US secretary of state Anthony Blinken. 

Criticism of the party leader has focused on an LBC interview where Sir Keir seemed to suggest Israel has the ‘right’ to cut off power and water on Gaza. 

Sir Keir has since denied he ever endorsed Israel withholding humanitarian aid, insisting his remark related to a different question.

However, the clarification has done little to ease the row. Sir Keir’s spokesman today denied he had avoided raising the issue at PMQs for party management reasons, pointing to the fact that it dominated two previous sessions and there have also been other debates.

The Labour leader will try to placate furious members of the Parliamentary party in a meeting after PMQs.

Shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones insisted it was a ‘routine’ engagement, also expected to be attended by deputy leader Angela Rayner. 

He told Times Radio: ‘It is perfectly normal for MPs — we all represent different constituencies around the country — to want to speak to the leader of our party.

‘I’m sure it is the same in other political parties where there are issues that constituents are raising with us. And the meeting this afternoon is another example of that.

‘And understandably, this is a very sensitive and emotive issue, both for people who have connections and relatives to the Palestinian people as well as the Israeli people, and it is perfectly normal for Keir to sit down and listen to colleagues in the parliamentary party and indeed our councillors and other members from across the country.

‘So, a routine meeting and this is another example of that.’

After PMQs former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, a close associate of Jeremy Corbyn, called for Parliament to be recalled if Gaza is invaded. The Commons is due to  rise tomorrow ahead of the King’s Speech on November 7.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir has been accused of having ‘gravely misrepresenting’ a meeting with Muslim leaders in south Wales over the weekend.

He visited the centre on Sunday, posting images showing him meeting figures from the local community. 

In a post on X, he said: ‘I was grateful to hear from the Muslim community of the South Wales Islamic Centre.

‘I repeated our calls for all hostages to be released, more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, for the water and power to be switched back on, and a renewed focus on the two state solution.’

Sir Keir said he was ‘questioned by members’ and ‘made clear it is not and has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines. International law must be followed’.

But in a statement last night, the South Wales Islamic Centre apologised for the ‘hurt and confusion’ caused by hosting Sir Keir.

The centre’s statement said: ‘We wish to stress Keir Starmer’s social media post and images gravely misrepresented our congregants and the nature of the visit.

In a statement last night, the South Wales Islamic Centre apologised for the ‘hurt and confusion’ caused by hosting Sir Keir

‘We affirm, unequivocally, the need for a free Palestine. We implore all those with political authority to uphold international law, and to end the occupation of Palestine.’

The centre said it wanted to ‘apologise for the hurt and confusion that our hosting of this visit has caused’.

It added: ‘Our intention was to raise the concerns of the Muslim community around the suffering if Palestinians, and so we hosted an event initially with local representatives on the issue, and the knowledge of Keir Starmer’s attendance was given at short notice.

‘There was a robust and frank conversation which reflected the sentiments Muslim communities are feeling at this time. Members of the community directly challenged Keir on his statements made on the Israeli Government’s right to cut food, electricity and water to Gaza, warranting war crimes as well as his failure to call for an immediate ceasefire.’

As mass resignations by councillors show, there’s a deep split in Labour over Israel which Starmer can’t control much longer, says Tom Harris, former Labour minister
 

A general election is expected in less than a year. Sir Keir Starmer recently overturned two massive majorities to win crucial by-elections. Opinion polls place his party a solid 20 points ahead of the Tories.

But yesterday, instead of savouring the tantalising aroma of power, Labour activists were busy trying to stage an online insurrection.

The hysterical hashtag ‘StarmerOutNOW’ was trending on X, formerly known as Twitter, as Corbynite ideologues united to vent their fury at the party leadership.

What had sparked this latest Leftie tantrum was, inevitably, Starmer’s robust stance on Israel in the wake of Hamas’s barbaric attacks earlier this month.

On Monday in the Commons, he defended Israel’s ‘right to defend herself’ with adamantine clarity, defying calls from sections of his own party for a ‘ceasefire’.

But, while Starmer’s position on the conflict is pretty clear, the truth is that there is a deep split within the Labour party on the question of Israel — and has been for a long time.

The party that remains the favourite to win the next election is hopelessly divided when it comes to one basic question: Are you on the side of a free democracy trying to defend itself against a genocidal enemy, or do you waver and say, well, it’s complicated?

Two weeks ago, the Labour leader had gone further still, telling LBC radio that Israel ‘does have that right’ to cut off water and power to the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s attacks. (Labour later suggested his remarks had been misconstrued.)

But, while Starmer’s position on the conflict is pretty clear, the truth is that there is a deep split within the Labour party on the question of Israel — and has been for a long time.

The party that remains the favourite to win the next election is hopelessly divided when it comes to one basic question: Are you on the side of a free democracy trying to defend itself against a genocidal enemy, or do you waver and say, well, it’s complicated?

At least 23 Labour councillors have resigned the whip in response to Starmer’s stance on the conflict. Some 72 have written him an ‘open letter’ saying they had lost confidence in him as leader.

In a separate statement, six Oxford councillors wrote: ‘This is a direct threat to our democratic rights. We no longer feel we can serve as Labour councillors… in a choice between serving our parties or justice, we have chosen justice.’

In Scotland, 15 officials have resigned, with some accusing the Scottish party of ‘stifling democracy’ after a motion calling for an end to military action was ruled out of order.

And in the UK Parliament, more than one in six Labour MPs has now called on Israel to stop its bombing campaign against Hamas — a military action aimed squarely at killing the terror group’s murderous zealots while minimising civilian casualties.

Everyone wants to see peace in the region, but a ceasefire now would give Hamas the opportunity to prepare another incursion into Israeli territory, slaughtering grandmothers and babies once again.

Yet this simple fact seems to elude the 36 Labour MPs who backed a Parliamentary motion tabled last week by the ultra-Left MP Richard Burgon. (You may remember him as the Corbynista who once averred that ‘Zionism is the enemy of peace’ and then denied having done so until proof emerged that he had.)

Burgon’s motion dispensed with Hamas’s atrocities in a mere 13 words, and spent the next 200 words condemning Israel, the victim of those attacks.

Such double-standards, of course, are of a piece with Labour’s Corbynista faction.

Corbyn himself may now suffer the indignity of sitting as an independent in the Commons after Starmer kicked him out of the party for claiming, in a moment of genuine disgrace, that reports of anti-Semitism in the party had been ‘dramatically overstated’.

But though he is no longer in Labour, the bearded Marxist remains a godlike figure to activists — and his ubiquitous presence at pro-Palestine rallies, to say nothing of his cult-like following on social media, are deeply unwelcome to the leadership.

Grotesque

Only this week, Rishi Sunak publicly reminded Corbyn in the Commons that he once described the butchers of Hamas as ‘friends’. (Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy particularly relished this barb.)

Corbyn’s ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell — who attended a pro-Palestine fringe event at Labour Party conference — was another signatory to Burgon’s motion, as was long-term Leftist Barry Gardiner.

But other names were more surprising — and it is abundantly clear that Labour’s issues with Israel run deeper.

I have long been aware of this: I was a Labour member for 34 years, 14 of them as an MP, including as a minister. But, in the Commons, I frequently came across a stubborn refusal to recognise the real dangers of Islamism.

One fellow MP even refused to acknowledge to me that extreme Islamism posed any kind of threat to our way of life, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Labour MPs who refuse to condemn Hamas and to support Israel, our natural ally, bring shame on their party.

It concerns me deeply that several apparently moderate Labour MPs are also failing to fall on the right side in a straightforward battle against evil. The Blairite Sir Stephen Timms added his name to Burgon’s motion — even though he himself was a victim of Islamist terrorism in 2010, when he was stabbed during a constituency surgery by an attacker wielding a six-inch kitchen knife.

While his London constituency of East Ham has a large minority Muslim electorate, at least 31 Labour MPs represent constituencies with a majority of Muslim voters, including firebrand Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.

For now at least, Starmer knows he is in a strong position — and he is willing to face down the elements of his party urging a ‘ceasefire’.

He understands, too, that he still has work to do repairing the disastrous anti-Semitism of the Corbyn years. Taking a robust line on Israel, in its hour of need, is right politically as well as morally.

But the splits in Labour are not going away. Two or three years from now, under a future Starmer government, it is easy to envision a cacophony of anti-Israel voices growing to a screeching crescendo.

If large numbers of Labour backbenchers are implacably opposed to the actions of Israel, if every effort made by the Israeli Defence Forces to protect its citizens is condemned by government MPs as ‘war crimes’, how could a Labour foreign secretary do his or her job?

These splits go beyond mere policy. They could have dire implications for Britain’s security and our place in the world.

• Tom Harris is former Labour MP for Glasgow South and was a transport minister from 2006 to 2008.

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