Neil Wilby Media

The Leader of Burnley Borough Council has resigned, along with ten of his fellow Labour councillors, in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in the current Israel-Palestine war.

Ex-Cllr Afrasiab Anwar, who has been a member of the Labour Party for over ten years, was amongst those whom, last week, called for the Labour UK Leader to step down.

He described leaving Labour as a “really difficult decision”, adding: “We just can’t stand by watching and being part of a party that is not speaking out, or at the very least calling for a ceasefire.

Starmer has urged Israel to obey international law and called for what he describes as ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the fighting, but continues to avoid calling for an immediate ceasefire; a stance seen as tearing apart his Shadow Cabinet and Labour councillors nationwide.

“Instead of talking of peace, all of our world leaders, including the leader of the Labour party, are talking about humanitarian pauses. It’s just nonsensical,” Anwar added.

He said the group had tried “everything we could by working within the party” and that he wanted Labour to “come back to its core values of fighting for social justice”.

In a statement sent out yesterday (5th November, 2023), the dissenting Burnley councillors said: “It has become apparent that Keir Starmer and the leadership either cannot or will not heed our concerns or acknowledge the sentiments within our communities.”

Adding: “In response to our calls for him to resign he responded that the individual concerns of members are not his focus, further illustrating that he does not value the voice of the grassroots of the party.”

A cabal of Labour frontbenchers, believed to total sixteen, and one third of the entire Parliamentary Labour Party has either called for a ceasefire or shared calls backing a ceasefire on social media. They include Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton, and Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East. Another Bradford MP, Naz Shah, is know to be strongly pro-Palestine.

Other very senior Labour politicians, including the Mayors of London and Greater Manchester, Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham, respectively; and the Scottish Labour Leader, Anas Sarwar, are also amongst those challenging Keir Starmer’s stance.

The latter told reporters at the weekend that his focus was on stopping the suffering in Gaza, not on the “individual positions” of his Party members.

Last week, over 300 Labour councillors signed a letter urging their Party Leader to back a ceasefire in Gaza. It included these words:

“As community leaders, we are proactively supporting our residents by speaking to faith and community groups and working to protect our communities who are facing rising hate crime and racially motivated violence,” the letter said.

“The intensified human catastrophe in Gaza impacts us all, and the Labour party’s failure to call for an end to violence is causing hurt in our communities.”

The Leader of Pendle Borough Council, also in Lancashire, called on Sir Keir Starmer to resign on Thursday. Cllr Asjad Mahmood said: “I, and my fellow colleagues have seen the distressing loss of lives on both sides of this conflict and have been putting pressure on the party leader to lead calls for a ceasefire to stop the innocent loss of lives.

“Unfortunately, he has failed to listen and we ask him to reconsider his position and resign to allow someone else to lead our party who has compassion and speaks out against injustice and indiscriminate killings of innocent human beings.”

In another famous old East Lancashire town, albeit now part of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the beleaguered Leader of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Cllr Arooj Shah, took part in a carefully choreographed charade at Full Council last Wednesday. Using, or misusing, depending on your standpoint on Constitutional matters, ‘Mayor’s Urgent Business’, the ruling Labour Group took the opportunity to, seemingly, blame the UK government for the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and resolved to write to the Prime Minister urging a ceasefire.

However laudable it may have seemed to bring attention to the plight of the occupants of Gaza, to the objective reviewer it was genuinely cringemaking to note the avoidance of any mention of either Hamas or the much-criticised stance of the Leader of the Opposition over a ceasefire.

There was no word of condemnation for Hamas following the 7th October massacre in Israel that triggered what is now a deeply ugly conflict and human tragedy on a scale almost too awful for words.

Cllr Shah, and her closest political aides in Oldham (#Team Arooj), are heavily pro-Palestinian and she is also a staunch ally of Keir Starmer. A juxtaposition that will take the skills of a practiced contortionist to maintain through what is likely to be a lengthy round of hostilities in the Middle East and the political disposition of her Party Leader, a notorious fence-sitter.

Last week, five Labour councillors who serve Oldham wards, all from Muslim backgrounds, signed an open letter calling on the Labour Party to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Those councillors, four of whom are Cabinet members, joined a growing list of over 330 Muslim Labour councillors across the country in writing to the Labour Party Leader and his Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner MP, who constituency includes Failsworth, part of Oldham Borough.

The five whom signed the letter are Deputy Leader, Cllr Shaid Mushtaq; Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Abdul Jabbar; Cllr Mohon Ali, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills; Deputy Cabinet member for Business and Enterprise, Cllr Mohammed Nazrul Islam; and Cllr Abdul Malik.

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Page last updated: Monday 6th November, 2023 at 1105 hours

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