Keir Starmer today called for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza as he desperately tries to head off another major Labour revolt.
The Labour leader has tabled an amendment to an SNP motion in a bid to stop his MPs siding with the SNP in a vote tomorrow.
Although the text represents a major shift by Sir Keir, it does put the ceasefire call alongside a demand for Hamas to release all hostages.
Sir Keir has been struggling to contain divisions over the Israel-Gaza conflict – which saw him disown the party’s Rochdale by-election candidate last week.
Ten frontbenchers quit to support a previous SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in November.
Keir Starmer is desperately hunting for a way of heading off another major Labour revolt on Gaza
Wreckage in Gaza this week as the conflict following the October 7 Hamas massacre continues
Sir Keir’s allies have been hoping he could find a form of words that allows his MPs to support an amendment instead tomorrow.
A party spokeswoman said this afternoon: ‘Our amendment calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, in line with our allies.
‘We need the hostages released and returned. We need the fighting to stop now. We need a massive humanitarian aid programme for Gaza. And any military action in Rafah cannot go ahead.
‘There needs to be an end to violence on all sides. Israelis have the right to the security that the horror of October 7 cannot happen again.
‘We want the fighting to stop now. We also have to be clear on how we prevent the violence starting up again. There will be no lasting peace without a diplomatic process that delivers a two-state solution, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state.’
The SNP motion urges ‘an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel’. At a later point in the text it ‘further calls for the immediate release of all hostages taken by Hamas and an end to the collective punishment of the Palestinian people’.
The Labour version is more nuanced, calling ‘for Hamas to release and return all hostages and for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, which means an immediate stop to the fighting and a ceasefire that lasts and is observed by all sides, noting that Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence and that Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7th October cannot happen again’.
Sir Keir devoted a section of his speech to the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow on Sunday to the crisis, saying he wanted a ‘permanent’ ceasefire.
But Scottish Labour members voted to back the SNP motion, and the leader north of the border Anas Sarwar described the text as ‘perfectly reasonable’.
Some of the heat could be taken out of the row by the US pushing a UN Security Council resolution calling for a temporary ceasefire, in an apparent bid to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu.
Previously the US had been unwilling to use the term ceasefire.
Senior Labour figures had been refusing to say whether the party would support the SNP motion when it comes to the Commons tomorrow afternoon.
Yesterday shadow health secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged the anger of Muslim communities at Sir Keir response to the October 7 Hamas massacre and ensuing conflict.
In a round of interviews, Mr Streeting said he ‘understood’ how strongly people felt and slammed Israel for ‘going too far’ in its military action.
Asked whether he thought Israel had ‘gone too fast’, Mr Streeting replied: ‘I think, objectively, yes, Israel has gone too far. And we have seen that with a disproportionate loss of innocent civilian life.’
In his speech on Sunday, Sir Keir warned Benjamin Netanyahu not to extend Israel’s military offensive to Rafah, as he stressed the need for a two-state solution.
‘Any ceasefire cannot be one-sided. It must stop all acts of violence on both sides and it must lead to a genuine peace process,’ he said.
‘The offensive threatened on Rafah, a place where one-and-a-half million people are now cramped together in unimaginable conditions with nowhere else for them to go.
‘This cannot become a new theatre of war. That offensive cannot happen. Even in these most terrible of circumstances, a two-state solution must be back on the table.’
Sir Keir said everyone wanted to see ‘a return of all the hostages taken on October 7th, an end to the killing of innocent Palestinians, a huge scaling up of humanitarian relief and an end to the fighting’.
‘Not just for now, not just for a pause, but permanently. A ceasefire that lasts. That is what must happen now. The fighting must stop now,’ he said.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has tabled a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire