Keir Starmer says ceasefire in Gaza isn’t ‘correct position’
Labour MPs who failed to back last night’s SNP ceasefire amendment vote in the Commons were targeted today, both offline and online, by pro-Palestinian activists.
In Bethnal Green, a London constituency with one of the largest proportions of Muslim voters in the country, local MP Rushanara Ali was the target of “hundreds of schoolchildren” who marched on her local Labour branch office.
Videos were posted online of the march processing down Cambridge Heath Road, where the Labour branch office is.
One observer claimed 400 joined in the march, with video footage showing the protestors chanting “Israel is a terror state” and “free, free Palestine”.
One activist from Stop The War said Ms Ali had been targeted after she “shamefully refused to vote for a ceasefire last night”.
READ MORE: Starmer hit by huge rebellion as he loses eight shadow ministers over key vote
Stop The War is behind the so-called “School Strike for Palestine”, with six more set to take place tomorrow in Bristol, Manchester, Harrow, Redbridge, Glasgow and Burton.
Rushanara Ali, the Shadow Minister for Investment and Small Businesses, voted against the SNP’s ceasefire motion in the Commons last night, unlike 10 of her frontbench colleagues who resigned their posts to back the opposition’s stance.
In a statement on Twitter last night, Ms Ali said she had long supported a ceasefire, but was still refusing to back the SNP’s amendment.
“I have never considered my role on the Labour front bench to be above my commitment to my constituents and my principles – and that is why I refused to join the Shadow Government many times.
“If my resignation meant the needle would move in the slightest over forcing a ceasefire, my letter would have been written and deposited already.
“The reality is that this motion does not secure a ceasefire and would not leave to one.”
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While Ms Ali didn’t resign for last night’s vote, she did warn Sir Keir that she would be willing to leave his frontbench in future on a matter of foreign policy.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was also attacked on social media for failing to back a ceasefire.
One Twitter user suggested reminding Mr Streeting’s Muslim and South Asian voters that he’s gay in the hope it would “help him lose his seat inshallah”.
Mr Streeting hit back, saying his constituents are “better than this. They know what prejudice looks and feels like”.
One hard left Twitter user posted a thread of every single Labour MP who abstained or voted against a ceasefire, accusing each of them in turn of having “blood on your hands”.
The thread garnered 14,000 likes and over 8,000 shares.
The official Green Party Twitter account also published a graphic of what they claimed was “every MP that failed to vote for an end to the killing in Gaza”, even though the ceasefire vote would have likely made no difference to the war.
One user slammed the Green Party’s attack as “beyond despicable” and accused them of “fuelling hatred towards public representatives in on the interests of their own political gain”.
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