Labour leader loses eight frontbenchers in Gaza revolt
Keir Starmer suffers biggest revolt of leadership over Gaza ceasefire.
British Labour leader Keir Starmer suffered the biggest rebellion of his leadership on Wednesday night as nearly one-third of his MPs, including eight frontbenchers, defied their leader to back a ceasefire in Gaza in a Commons vote.
The eight frontbenchers, including high-profile Jess Phillips, quit the opposition frontbench to vote for the Scottish National Party amendment calling for a ceasefire.
The Labour frontbench was deeply divided over whether to support the party’s amendment to the King’s speech, which called for a humanitarian pause and criticised Israel’s conduct of the war, or the SNP amendment.
The original Labour amendment was defeated in the House of Commons by 290 to 183 votes.
The SNP amendment was defeated by 293 votes to 125, despite 56 Labour MPs voting for it.
Other frontbenchers to rebel against the Labour whip were Paula Barker, Rachel Hopkins, Afzal Khan, Sarah Owen, Yasmin Qureshi, Naz Shah and Andy Slaughter. Two opposition parliamentary private secretaries, Mary Kelly Foy and Dan Carden, also voted for the ceasefire, and opposition education spokeswoman Helen Hayes argued for a ceasefire during the Commons debate but didn’t vote.
Ms Phillips posted her resignation as opposition spokeswoman for domestic violence on X, saying: “On this occasion I must vote with my constituents, my head and my heart which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and Palestine.”
Sir Keir said in response that Israel suffered its worst terrorist attack in a single day on October 7.
“No government would allow the capability and intent to repeat such an attack to go unchallenged,” he said.
“Since then, we have also seen an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza … my approach has been driven by the need to respond to both these tragedies. I regret that some colleagues felt unable to support the position tonight, but I wanted to be clear about where I stood, and where I will stand”.
The SNP amendment called for the government to “join with the international community in urgently pressing all parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire”.
The Labour amendment called for “humanitarian pauses to allow aid on a scale that begins to meet the desperate needs of the people of Gaza”.
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