Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer suffered a major revolt among his own MPs on Wednesday evening when no fewer than 56, including 10 of his frontbenchers, defied the whip to back a Scottish National Party (SNP) amendment to the King’s Speech in the House of Commons calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war.
Labour had tabled its own motion, making a more moderate appeal for a “humanitarian pause” in the conflict and ordered its representatives to support that stance rather than endorse the more drastic position adopted by Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster.
