In backing a ceasefire in Gaza, scores of politicians have shown the courage and heart that their leader is lacking
This was a crucial moment in Labour’s history. With one in every 200 Palestinians in Gaza now estimated to have been killed in this five-week military onslaught, a significant chunk of Labour’s parliamentary party have been privately agonising. And tonight, that agonising became a very concrete problem for Keir Starmer: 56 of his MPs defied the whip in order to back an SNP amendment calling for a ceasefire. That included eight frontbenchers, who have either resigned or been sacked.
Why did they do it? They know that the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has condemned the “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people, that a Palestinian child is being killed every 10 minutes, that entire generations of families have been wiped out. Like anyone seriously engaging with the past weeks’ events, they know Israel’s government is hardly being subtle: that this weekend, a minister claimed Israel was instituting a new Nakba, the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948; that the defence minister justified a total siege on the grounds Israel was fighting “human animals”.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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