Keir Starmer blasted over Israel stance as two shadow cabinet ministers threaten to quit in major backlash
SIR Keir Starmer is struggling to stem a major backlash on Israel from scores of Muslim Labour MPs and councillors.
The Labour leader refused their demands to demand a ceasefire — but has joined calls for so-called humanitarian pauses to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip.
Two Shadow Cabinet ministers were said to be weighing up quitting after he shunned calls to cave in to Hamas by urging Israel to end its bombardment.
Sir Keir has been contending with the growing party crisis since he told a radio interview two weeks ago that Israel had the right to turn off water and electricity supplies to Gaza.
Asked by LBC if a “siege is appropriate” including “cutting off power, cutting off water”, he replied: “I think that Israel does have that right.”
He later attempted to suggest he never made the comment and said international law must be followed at all times.
But the comment sparked anger within Labour.
He met angry backbenchers amid pressure from more than 150 councillors to take a tougher line on Israel.
Instead, he moved to back Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new stance to support UN measures to allow windows for more aid to be delivered.
Sir Keir said of the move: “It’s clear that the amount of aid and essential utilities getting into Gaza is completely insufficient to meet the humanitarian emergency on the ground. We support humanitarian pauses.”
One MP described the meeting between Sir Keir and the backbenchers as “generally quite civilised” but added: “It was also quite firm, people said what they needed to say.”
They added: “Everybody who was there had a chance to get things off their chest.”
But they acknowledged that Sir Keir was “not quite there yet” on backing a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, in an angry letter, scores of Labour councillors declared that they “cannot sit idly by as Palestinians face collective punishment”.
They called for all hostages to be handed back and said there was a “strength of feeling throughout the nation and in our communities” that a ceasefire must be agreed.
PROTEST RESIGNATIONS
A handful of Muslim councillors have already resigned in protest at Labour’s position on the war.
But hitting back at those actions one shadow minister told The Sun: “Ceasefire calls are insane. How do you have a ceasefire with a terrorist organisation who is currently holding hostages and firing thousands of missiles at you?”
On Sunday, Sir Keir visited a mosque in Wales in an effort to ease community tensions.
He later boasted that his visit had been a huge success.
But in a further blow to him, leaders at the mosque quickly hit back at that claim.
They said they had been stitched up by Sir Keir and the party over how the trip was portrayed.
They claimed the Labour leader had “gravely misrepresented our congregants and the nature of the visit” in tweets he sent out afterwards, which it said “put [the centre] and the wider Muslim community into disrepute”.