Starmer faces backlash from 38 Labour MPs over failure to confront Trump on Gaza ‘ethnic cleansing’
Sir Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to challenge Donald Trump over his plans to turn Gaza into his latest real estate project.
It comes as 38 Labour MPs wrote to him demanding he takes a stand against Mr Trump’s “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza in the biggest public backlash within the party against the prime minister since Labour won the election.
In a sign of the shared anger across parliament, the letter was also signed by eight independent MPs, four from Plaid Cymru, two SNP, two SDLP and one Alliance Party along with 13 peers from different parties including Labour.
Sir Keir attempted to avoid condemnation of the US president when he was confronted on the issue during Prime Minister’s Questions but Downing Street confirmed the PM planned to talk to the US president over the shock plans.
Asked whether it was accepted that the UK’s position is at odds with the US president’s suggestions that America could take ownership of the Gaza Strip, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “We will work with President Trump and his team on a wide range of issues, including the Middle East.”
However, the tepid response has gone down badly in his own party as Labour MPs made their feelings known in a missive to the prime minister.
The letter by 68 parliamentarians led by Labour’s Rosena Allin-Khan noted that the plans by Mr Trump to take over Gaza and move Palestinians elsewhere “amounts to ethnic cleansing”.
They went on: “The world intervened in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and roundly condemned ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. We must meet these plans to remove millions of Palestinians from their homes, naked as they are, with the same robust response.
“Given the horrors which we have seen take place across Gaza in recent months, the international community should be focusing on ensuring Phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement materialises. These barbaric proposals by President Trump seriously risk destabilising the region and wrecking the ceasefire agreement. The result of this will be a return to war, more death and destruction in Gaza, and hostage release negotiations collapsing.”
They demanded: “The government must commit to honouring its commitments under international law to prevent war crimes, such as ethnic cleansing. President Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the international order and the peace process in the Middle East can only succeed with the full support of the international community, including the United States.”
The row erupted after President Trump’s press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he suggested that the US would be taking control of Gaza.
He told reporters in the White House: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.
“If it’s necessary, we’ll do that, we’re going to take over that piece, we’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
The move appeared to reflect a strategic colonisation policy of the new Trump administration which has so far included taking back ownership of the Panama Canal, forcing Denmark to sell Greenland and making Canada the 51st state of the USA.
