Imran Hussain resigns as shadow minister over Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s position on Israel-Hamas ceasefire

Published

1 year ago

November 7, 2023

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Shadow minister Imran Hussain has quit Labour’s frontbench in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the Israel-Hamas war.

Mr Hussain’s decision will be a blow for the Labour leader, who has been attempting to hold his party together in an increasingly fractious debate over whether the leadership should back a ceasefire in Gaza.

In his resignation letter to Mr Starmer, Mr Hussain said: “It has become clear that my view on the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza differs substantially from the position you have adopted.

“I believe the party needs to go further and call for a ceasefire.”

The MP for Bradford East was explicit in condemning Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, but said the situation in Gaza was horrific.

“As I write, more than 1,400 Israeli and over 10,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the last month,” he wrote.

“This shocking number of fatalities is set to grow as indiscriminate attacks and the siege of Gaza continues.”

Mr Hussain had been on Labour’s front bench for eight years, most recently as shadow minister for the new deal for working people.

He said he wanted to be a “strong advocate for the humanitarian ceasefire”.

“It is clear that I cannot sufficiently, in all good conscience, do this from the frontbench given its current position,” he wrote.

Mr Hussain said he was “deeply troubled” by Sir Keir’s comments on the war in an LBC interview last month and said the party must be vocal in calling for a ceasefire.

Sir Keir has resisted calls for a full ceasefire on the grounds it would “embolden” Hamas and allow it to carry out similar attacks to 7 October, when 1,400 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Instead, he has taken the same stance as the US and backed calls for a humanitarian pause to allow aid into Gaza, where the Hamas-run health ministry says more than 10,000 people have now been killed.

Despite attempting to hold off further rebellions with a series of interventions last week, the leader of Burnley Council and 10 other councillors resigned from Labour over Sir Keir’s decision not to push for a ceasefire.

Afrasiab Anwar, who has been in the party for 10 years, said it had been a “really difficult decision” to leave Labour and was among those calling for Sir Keir to step down on Thursday.

It takes the total number of councillors who have resigned over the row to 50, while 18 shadow ministers have defied the official Labour position by calling for a ceasefire, as well as London mayor Sadiq Khan, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

Sir Keir has attempted to set out his reasoning for not backing a ceasefire as the calls from within his party grow louder.

In a speech last week, in which he sought to calm tensions over his position on the conflict, Sir Keir said he “understands” calls for a ceasefire but he did not believe it was the “correct position” to take.

He said a ceasefire “always freezes any conflict in the state where it currently lies” and would “embolden” Hamas and that a humanitarian pause was the “only credible approach” to the conflict in Gaza.

“Our current calls for pauses in the fighting, for clear and specific humanitarian purposes and which must start immediately, is right in practice as well as principle,” he argued.

“In fact it is at this moment, the only credible approach that has any chance of achieving what we all want to see in Gaza, the urgent alleviation of Palestinian suffering.

“And it’s why it is also a position shared by our major allies in the US and the EU.”

Politics

NY Supreme Court allows Greenidge to keep mining, but challenges remain

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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NY Supreme Court allows Greenidge to keep mining, but challenges remain

The state Department of Environmental Conservation botched the permitting process, but it still gets a do-over.

Politics

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

2 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the three month period.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Am I satisfied with the numbers published today? Of course not. I want growth to be stronger, to come sooner, and also to be felt by families right across the country.”

“It’s why in my Mansion House speech last night, I announced some of the biggest reforms of our pension system in a generation to unlock long term patient capital, up to £80bn to help invest in small businesses and scale up businesses and in the infrastructure needs,” Ms Reeves later told Sky News in an interview.

“We’re four months into this government. There’s a lot more to do to turn around the growth performance of the last decade or so.”

New economy data tests chancellor’s growth plan

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.