UK Labour MPs ‘scared’ to challenge Starmer on Gaza, Lebanon

LONDON: A former Labour MP has said colleagues are “scared for their jobs” over disagreeing with the party’s leader, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on Israel’s war in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon.

Starmer has called for immediate ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon, saying at the UN General Assembly last week that “escalation serves no one.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy also announced a review into arms export licenses to Israel in July, amid fears that items sold to the country could be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. Thirty licenses were suspended in September. 

However, Starmer has found himself at odds with many in his party, with some believing that he has not done enough to facilitate an end to the fighting in the Middle East, or that he has been slow to act. Currently, 320 arms exports licenses from the UK to Israel remain valid.

MP Zarah Sultana, who was suspended by the party earlier this year, told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: “Many (disagree with Starmer) because we’re seeing (the) deaths of 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza. We’re seeing death in Lebanon, and we know the UK government could take a different route where it prioritized lives, treated them all equally and ended all arms sales.

“I think it’s deeply concerning that people aren’t willing to be public about that because they’re scared for their jobs.”

One of the program’s hosts, Nick Robinson, told listeners that he had contacted six Labour MPs to ask them to comment on Sultana’s claims, but said: “None would come on the program as they said, and I quote one of the MPs we contacted, ‘it would cost us our jobs.’”

Sultana was one of seven Labour MPs suspended by the party in July after voting for a Scottish National Party motion to amend the King’s Speech, which is the UK government’s policy platform for the coming year. She currently sits as an independent MP in the House of Commons.