Senior UK Labourite quits over party's refusal to back Gaza ceasefire

Imran Hussain, the UK Labour party’s spokesman on workers’ rights, says he is resigning over party boss Keir Starmer’s refusal to advocate for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

“A ceasefire is essential to ending the bloodshed, to ensuring that enough aid can pass into Gaza and reach those most in need, and to help ensure the safe return of the Israeli hostages,” the shadow minister writes in a letter to Starmer.

Hussain adds that he “unequivocally condemned” Hamas’s October 7 attacks and firmly agreed that “every country has the right to defend itself.”

But this could “never become a right to deliberately violate international law on protecting civilians or to commit war crimes,” he says.