Jess Phillips quits Labour frontbench as Keir Starmer suffers major rebellion over Gaza ceasefire – UK politics live

Here’s a summary of a whirlwind Wednesday in British politics.

• The UK supreme court ruled this morning that the government’s flagship immigration policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful, because of risks to the people being sent there.

• The unanimous ruling marked a major blow for the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who responded in a combative press conference by vowing to push through emergency legislation to resurrect the plan.

• Sunak planned to pursue a new method by creating a new international treaty with Rwanda, trying to sidestep the court ruling “to get flights off” by next spring.

• Refugee charities welcomed the ruling, with Amnesty International urging the government to abandon the Rwanda policy and repeal the Illegal Migration Act.

• Backbench Conservatives on the right including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Simon Clarke led Tory calls for government to bypass the European convention on human rights, but the supreme court’s ruling said the Rwanda policy would still be unlawful even if the UK left the ECHR.

• Meanwhile, a major vote was held in the House of Commons on Wednesday evening calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which MPs voted against.

• The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, faced a large rebellion over his policy not to back a ceasefire, with 56 Labour MPs and eight shadow frontbenchers defying Starmer.

• Protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war were ejected from the gallery of the House of Commons, and a large pro-Palestinian demonstration was held outside parliament, with people shouting “shame on you” at MPs.

• It came as the death toll in Gaza from Israeli bombardment climbed above 11,180, and the United Nations security council voted to adopt a draft resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in fighting in Gaza, and greater efforts to allow humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged territory.

That’s all from me, Jem Bartholomew, and for the UK politics live blog for Wednesday. Thanks for following along and see you next time.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has seen a big rebellion of eight shadow ministers – including shadow domestic violence minister Jess Phillips – from a total of 56 Labour MPs who voted with the SNP on an amendment to the king’s speech calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The rebels on the front bench included Phillips, Rachel Hopkins, Sarah Owen, Afzal Khan, Paula Barker, Naz Shah, Yasmin Quereshi and Andy Slaughter. Two parliamentary private secretaries also left.

The 56 Labour MPs rejected Starmer’s position, which calls for a “credible, diplomatic and political process” to deliver a peaceful two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. The SNP motion called for an immediate ceasefire.

The rebellion signals how the divisions over views on the Israel-Hamas conflict have the potential to tear Labour apart – a point of contention that Starmer will face tough questions about as the country gears up for a general election in the next year.

The biggest name to leave the front bench was Phillips, who said in a statement: “On this occasion I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart … I can see no route where the current military action does anything but put at risk the hope of peace and security for anyone in the region now and in the future.”

The United Nations has called for a ceasefire as over 11,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Israel’s bombardment began, after the 7 October massacres by Hamas in Israel that saw 1,400 killed and 240 taken hostage.

After the vote, Starmer said: “I regret that some colleagues felt unable to support the position tonight. But I wanted to be clear about where I stood, and where I will stand.”

Three Labour frontbenchers resigned in the minutes before the vote, after Starmer made clear that those voting for the ceasefire amendment would be sacked.

Meanwhile, outside the gates of parliament, a large demonstration in support of a ceasefire shouted “shame on you” at MPs who rejected calls for an immediate stop in the fighting.

Three Labour shadow ministers have resigned over the party’s opposition to a House of Commons motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

In the last few minutes, Afzal Khan has resigned as shadow minister for exports, Paula Barker has quit as shadow minister for devolution and the English regions, Yasmin Qureshi has stepped down as shadow women and equalities minister.

“I understand that you do not feel that a ceasefire is currently the right course of action and due to our difference of opinion on the issue, I do not feel I am able to continue as a shadow minister,” Khan said in a statement posted on X/Twitter.

It comes as they were facing being sacked by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, if they backed an SNP amendment to the king’s speech calling for a ceasefire, which Labour opposes.

“The scale of bloodshed in Gaza is unprecedented. Tonight, I will vote for an immediate ceasefire,” Qureshi said. “We must call for an end to the carnage to protect innocents lives and end human suffering.

More to come.

We’re about 20 minutes out from a big parliamentary vote for Labour – over an SNP amendment to the king’s speech – that calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The vote threatens to be Keir Starmer’s biggest rebellions as leader, as three Labour frontbenchers have publicly defied the party leadership and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The likely outcome is that Starmer will sack them from the shadow front bench this evening.

Naz Shah (Bradford West), Afzal Khan (Manchester Gorton) and Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) told fellow MPs in the Commons of their intention to vote for an immediate ceasefire, and scores of backbenchers are expected to join them.

“Despite all the risk to our personal positions we must do what it is right,” Shah said.

On the evening broadcast round, Labour’s shadow business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, is on the Andrew Marr show defending Starmer’s position not to support the amendment.

“It’s not a free vote, there is a collective responsibility,” Reynolds said, adding: “It’s not so much about people being sacked as such, but that they would lose their jobs. If they’ve made a decision as a parliamentarian that they can’t be part of that collective decision, they wouldn’t be on the frontbench.”

Andrew Sparrow

A snap poll by YouGov suggests 39% of people think the government should respond to the supreme court judgment by scrapping the Rwanda policy entirely. Another 29% say the government should find an alternative third country, 14% say “something else”, and the rest don’t know.

That is all from me for tonight. My colleague Jem Bartholomew is taking over now

Rishi Sunak sounded considerably more gung-ho, Brexity and combative on Rwanda at his press conference just now than he did in the House of Commons, and a lot more assertive than James Cleverly, his new home secretary. Tory MPs watching it will probably be impressed.

But if Sunak succeeded, partly he achieved this by a rhetorical sleight of hand. The more hardline MPs have spent the day demanding “emergency legislation”, and almost always they have been referring to something that would allow the UK to ignore the European court of human rights. (See Suella Braverman at 4.27pm.)

And Sunak is going to give them “emergency legislation”. But his version is not the hardline “notwithstanding” measure favoured by Braverman and other leading Brexiters, but instead just a declaration that Rwanda counts as a safe country. This is what Boris Johnson is calling for (see 4.07pm), and Johnson implies all that is needed is secondary legislation under schedule 3 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004.

Sunak ought to have realised by now that anyone who thinks a Johnson wheeze is a solution to a complicated problem normally ends up being disappointed, and this may well be the case with this proposal. Just because parliament says Rwanda is safe, will that be enough for the courts?

Sunak confidently declared: “I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights.” But it was not clear exactly what he meant by this, and in his final answer (see 5.10pm) he implied that, with the new treaty and the “emergency legislation” in place, there would be no need for ECHR withdrawal. Braverman is unlikely to agree.

Sunak also in effect promised that flights to Rwanda would start leaving in the spring. But deportations under a new treaty would be subject to legal challenge, and so it could be hard to get even a single flight off the ground before the end of May. The prospect of a large number of deportations taking place by then seems even more remote. The danger for Sunak is that he has raised expectation he will struggle to meet.