Parliament votes on whether to label Hamas a terrorist organisation, despite appeals from Palestinian groups
Labour’s right-wing leader Keir Starmer has ordered the party’s MPs to vote in favour of banning Hamas as a terrorist organisation in a parliamentary ballot this evening, despite appeals from Palestinian groups.
The Tory move has been condemned as an extension of British colonialism, with a spokesperson for a coalition of Palestinian groups saying that it:
directly targets and antagonizes the Palestinian people and denies their legitimate rights to struggle for liberation from occupation.
[Labelling Hamas a terror organisation gives Israel] a green light to continue its aggression and crimes against our Palestinian people, which is the responsibility of the British government.
Several Labour MPs are expected to defy the order. Keir Starmer has described himself as an ‘unequivocal’ supporter of zionism. By contrast, he has taken no action against the widespread racism and Islamophobia of the Labour right.
Only three years ago, Labour’s conference was marked by hundreds of Palestinian flags in a show of solidarity.
And this year, the party’s conference strongly backed a motion ordering Labour to support heavy sanctions ‘apartheid’ Israel, despite a media blackout and an intense campaign by Labour to rig the vote. Keir Starmer and his foreign affairs spokesperson Lisa Nandy quickly said they would ignore the decision of Labour’s supposedly sovereign body.
Skwawkbox view:
Starmer’s order marks a new low in the Labour right’s decision to side with oppressors against the oppressed.
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