Scottish Labour conference vote and protest for Gaza ceasefire heap pressure on MPs

Delegates and protesters alike at the Scottish Labour party conference today are demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, heaping pressure on Scotland’s two Labour MPs and the party nationally ahead of another potential parliamentary vote.

Keir Starmer will face a fresh headache over Labour’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict next week if MPs vote again on a proposed Scottish National Party motion on “immediate ceasefire”, following criticism last week over two now-suspended Labour candidates’ alleged comments on the conflict.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said he was “proud” a composite motion from three Constituency Labour Parties was approved unanimously at the conference in Glasgow on Saturday morning (read the full text below).

The motion backs an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, including an end to rocket fire in and out of Gaza, the release of hostages by Hamas and the facilitation of aid into Gaza.

Meanwhile a Glasgow protest march on Saturday lunchtime, which organisers say is against “ongoing genocide” in Gaza, headed to just outside the  Scottish Labour conference.

STUC joins Glasgow protest as pressure grows for MPs

Big protest and lots of chants aimed at Keir Starmer outside @ScottishLabour conference #ScotLab24 pic.twitter.com/Ohd7Ax2UCI

— LabourList (@LabourList) February 17, 2024

In a sign of internal Labour tensions, one member of Scottish Labour’s Scottish Executive Committee, its youth representative Lauren Harper, were among those expected to be at the protest, as well as one candidate for Scottish Young Labour chair, George Taylor.

The Scottish Trade Unions Congress also organised its own bloc at the demonstration. General secretary Roz Foyer highlighted Saturday’s protest “in this city” and globally in her speech to the Scottish Labour conference on Friday, saying unions “will not remain silent while genocide is taking place before our very eyes”.

She also cited former prime minister Harold Wilson’s quote that Labour is a “moral crusade or it is nothing”. Foyer thanked Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and delegates who “will call for a ceasefire”.

Sarwar received large applause when in his own speech he said the fighting “must stop right now”.

🇮🇱🇵🇸Sarwar gets big applause for saying “the fighting must stop right now” in Israel and Gaza, and later when we says that Palestinian statehood is a right, not the “gift of a neighbour’.https://t.co/hUnpgPIWA1

— LabourList (@LabourList) February 16, 2024

Another SNP vote dilemma for Labour and its MPs in Scotland

Former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard highlighted the “unanimous” vote today and said “all Labour MPs must vote for a ceasefire now”.

A spokesperson for Labour left campaign group Momentum also claimed Scottish Labour had “spoken for the whole labour movement”, urging Labour MPs to back the likely SNP motion next week.

Meanwhile the Scottish National Party today sought to capitalise on the pressure by urging Sarwar to whip Scotland’s two Labour MPs Michael Shanks and Ian Murray to back the SNP’s proposed ceasefire motion in parliament next week.

The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn claimed today the two MPs’ decision “will tell you exactly where Scottish Labour MPs’ loyalties truly lie”.

The pair followed the party line nationally in declining to back the SNP’s motion in November, instead urging the SNP to back Labour’s own motion, and calling for a”full, comprehensive and immediate humanitarian pause” as the first step to an “enduring cessation of hostilities” and a political solution.

Starmer’s initial decision not to back a ceasefire last year sparked high-profile internal party unrest. Some 56 Labour MPs backed the SNP’s last motion in November, defying a three-line whip to abstain, including ten shadow frontbenchers who stood down.

But Labour’s stance has gradually grown closer and closer to campaigners’ calls for a ceasefire since Hamas’ attacks last October.

Starmer said this month that “the fighting must stop now” and urging a “sustainable ceasefire”, but he has not backed an “immediate” ceasefire as urged by the Scottish Labour and SNP motions.

Sarwar: Don’t fixate on ceasefire ‘semantics’

I’m proud that @ScottishLabour conference has unanimously passed a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East. pic.twitter.com/6VHj0AGYSX

— Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) February 17, 2024

On Friday, Sarwar said there was not “as much distance in this as people now believe” between his own position and that of Starmer, highlighting Starmer’s most recent comments.

“We shouldn’t be stuck on the semantics because this is a really important issue of life and death for people right now in Gaza and in Israel,” he told BBC Radio Scotland.

He said “open conversations” were taking place with Murray and Shanks about the SNP’s proposed motion next week.

A Scottish Labour spokesman told LabourList and other journalists on Friday: “Decisions on voting arrangements at Westminster are for the coming days, but every single Labour politician supports an end to the violence in Gaza now.”

Asked by one reporter if Sarwar had “any influence”,  the spokesman replied: “Of course he does, he’s leader of the Scottish Labour party.”

Read more of LabourList’s Scottish Labour party conference 2024 coverage from our editor in Glasgow:

• Watch and read Keir Starmer Scottish Labour speech: ‘The power to build a new Scotland is in your hands’
• Scottish Labour Conference 2024: Sarwar speech key highlights
• Scottish Labour target seats on ‘absolute knife-edge’ despite by-election triumphs
• Ian Murray: ‘We all want same thing’ as ceasefire march hits Labour conference
• Scottish Labour conference vote and protest for Gaza ceasefire heap pressure on MPs
• Anas Sarwar writes: ‘A seismic shift is underway – Scots won’t settle for the status quo’

Read the full Israel-Palestine composite motion passed by Scottish Labour

This is the full wording of the composite submitted by Cunninghame South CLP, Dundee City East CLP and Glasgow Anniesland CLP: