Nearly a quarter of Labour MPs have publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, contrary to the party’s official line, including two frontbenchers.
Underlining the extent of pressure on Keir Starmer over the issue, 49 Labour MPs have either said they want a ceasefire or signed a Commons motion calling for one, out of a current total of 199 Labour members in the Commons.
With continued speculation that some frontbenchers are ready to quit, Imran Hussain, the Bradford East MP and shadow minister for the future of work, signed an early day motion on Friday calling for a ceasefire.
About 40 Labour MPs have signed the EDM – a way by which MPs can formally register a view – which condemns the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas but says this does not “justify responding with the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”, and calls for a ceasefire.
Questions to Labour about whether Hussain might face repercussions for dissenting from the party view on a ceasefire brought no response, suggesting Starmer and his team are anxious to avoid exacerbating the situation.
Among those who have demanded a ceasefire by other means is Yasmin Qureshi, the shadow equalities minister, who spoke out at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday but has not yet been disciplined.
Qureshi asked Rishi Sunak: “How many more innocent Palestinians must die before the prime minister calls for a humanitarian ceasefire?”
A Labour spokesperson characterised this as wanting to know when Sunak might call for one, rather than demanding a ceasefire in itself.
The official Labour view, as set out by Starmer and his team, is that the party supports a US- and UN-backed idea for humanitarian “pauses”. These would be designed to temporarily stop the bombardments by Israel, and halt rockets from inside Gaza, to allow aid to enter, civilians to flee and hostages seized by Hamas to be released.
This stance says that calling for a complete ceasefire would deny Israel its legitimate right to pursue Hamas after the group massacred about 1,400 people in Israel on 7 October, almost all civilians, and took more than 200 hostages.
Starmer is under intense pressure from a number of his MPs to go further in seeking relief for Gaza, where more than 6,500 people, many of them children, have been killed by an ongoing Israeli bombardment, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Many Labour MPs in turn say they have received huge amounts of correspondence and messages from constituents expressing worry about the official line, notably after an LBC interview during the Labour conference earlier this month in which Starmer said Israel had the right to cut off power and water to Gaza. Days later, he clarified that his answer was only intended to be about Israel’s wider right to self-defence.
Several Labour MPs have told the Guardian that they have received more emails and other messages about this than any other issue in the past. In some cases more than 1,000 people have been in touch with an MP, including a range of voices from Muslim communities and beyond.
The Labour leader and his deputy, Angela Rayner, met more than a dozen Muslim Labour MPs on Wednesday afternoon, who said that his positioning on the conflict was causing distress to many in the party.
Those at the event argued that the disappointment amounted to much more than a “Jewish-Muslim community issue”.
A series of Labour councillors also quit the party after the LBC interview. On Wednesday, 150 other councillors jointly signed a letter to Starmer and Rayner requesting that Labour back a ceasefire.
Starmer has also been accused of having “gravely misrepresented” a meeting with Muslim leaders in Cardiff on Sunday.
The South Wales Islamic Centre said a meeting between Starmer and about 30 community leaders had been “tense”, and that subsequent tweets by the Labour leader were not accurate.
