Starmer regime’s performative condemnation of Israel’s starvation blockade exposed by party’s manoeuvres to prevent calls for concrete action
This week, as Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy mimicked anger at Israel’s starvation blockade on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and claimed that halting talks for a new trade deal with Israel was meaningful action (it does nothing to affect existing trade), the Labour party was blocking party members from putting forward a motion calling for the UK government to halt arms shipments.
The simple motion, put forward by an ‘all members’ Constituency Labour party (CLP) meeting in Canterbury, reads:
This CLP calls on its Labour Government to immediately halt all armaments supplies to the current Israeli Government due to its genocidal campaign in Gaza as reported by the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories.
The motion, proposed by Canterbury City Labour councillor Mike Bland and seconded by Kevin Powers (both Canterbury branch Labour Party members), had already passed at a local branch meeting but was reported to members by CLP Chair Val Kenny as having been barred from being heard, debated or voted on at the constituency-wide meeting that took place last Tuesday 20 May.
Whitstable resident Chris Weller, a Labour member of twenty-eight years, was present at the meeting and said that he and other members were “outraged” by obstructive action taken by the Labour’s South East Regional Office to ensure the motion could not proceed. He said:
At the start of the meeting it was stated by CLP Chair, Val Kenny, that Region would not allow this motion to be tabled and/or debated at the meeting. Why is the Labour Party so scared of this motion? Are the atrocities in Gaza not enough to call for an arms trade ban on Israel? 14,000 babies are currently facing starvation. Is this not enough to take action?
The motion is not antisemitic and no reason was given for barring this motion from being heard. We were told nothing about why the motion couldn’t be tabled and no-one from the South East Regional office was available to comment. Clearly, those at Labour South East Region had advance knowledge that this motion was to be debated but in my experience this has never happened before. It is up to the CLP to decide debate, but on this occasion our right to do so was blocked.
Many in the Labour Party, like myself, feel angry and betrayed by the Labour government’s continued complicity in Israel’s military actions in Gaza, while ignoring public sentiment evidenced by the huge pro-Palestine protests since Israel’s actions in Gaza began. Only recently has the government called for a ceasefire but what we need is action not words. Many Labour members believe that this “war” is a disproportionate response to the atrocities that took place on October 7.
Personally, I support an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages and negotiations for a two-state solution.
Referring to the party’s longstanding habit of suspending and expelling members who insist on speaking out about against Israel’s genocide and apartheid, Weller went on:
I realise that by speaking out like this, I may well lose my party membership but I share common humanity with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and I cannot watch their suffering and remain silent about what happened this week to block this important motion.”
As Lammy gave his speech announcing the ‘sanctions’, the RAF was about to conduct yet another spy flight over Gaza to provide intel to the occupation military. The Starmer regime’s ‘outrage’ is as performative as it is feeble.
Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:
Make a one-time donation
Make a monthly donation
Make a yearly donation
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyThanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.
But but but: What’s not to like??
Well, wee gobshite? This is YOUR party, under YOUR fuhrer.
Deafening silence from Folkestone CLP…
(Also with a “human rights lawyer” MP)
Deafening silence from the resident gobshite, too.
Not even a link with a subscription of ‘how awful israel (NOT smarmerite labour) have been’.
I bet Sir Gay Starver wont be blocking his Ukrainian rent boys
Erm ………………………. ;o)
I understand that Brian61’s reference is to suggestions making the rounds that there may be more than meets the eye to the incidents in which a Ukrainian national has been arrested over the three recent fires involving a vehicle and two properties.
Journalist Martin Jay alludes to it here…..
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/05/22/is-british-press-protecting-sir-keir-starmer-over-fire-boy/
…….along with the possibility that “The Sun newspaper has digital evidence”.
Observing “that even if The Sun holds such salacious evidence, it is unlikely that it will [be] used to expose Starmer. In reality, it would be held as an ace to garner more leverage in terms of access to the PM and confidential government documents.”
Whilst some might well consider such a suggestion – of a corporate media providing cover for their Oligarch owners bought and paid for politicians – a tad cynical, the evidence all around us as to how that media class and its Bernays based propaganda model operates would not support such a gullible and naive view.
well, they’re ‘freebies’ that many MPs don’t record in the Members’ Register
I think, in the case of rent boys, MPs are advised not to register their member…
Amazing how “democrats” hate democracy. Somewhat like the Knesset today………..
Morgan McSweeney’s “extreme centrism” aka ‘Labour Together’, a ruthless, factional group formed in 2015 with the single aim to delegitimise Jeremy Corbyn and then to destroy his leadership., is the real villain here. (Starmer and Lammy are just incidental, delinquent politicians) Look at McSweeney’s roles under Starmer:
— Chief of Staff to Keir Starmer from2020;
— Director of Campaigns (2021)
— Downing Street Chief of Staff (2024 onwards).
McSweeney shapes every idea, every strategy and every non-belief that Sir Keirmeleon pretends to hold. He so hates Corbyn and the left, that he simply inverts every single belief that a good man of the left (but particularly Jeremy Corbyn) would hold.
Palestine, free-thought and free-speech. Hate Corbyn, hate his values, pursue their opposite . Sir Chameleon’s more than happy to go along with it.
“I realise that by speaking out like this, I may well lose my party membership”
In Mr Weller’s shoes I should be jumping before I was pushed. I do understand there are still honourable people in the Labour Party thinking they can effect change, but the Labour Party is sadly no longer a place for anyone with a mind of their own – or principles.