Journalist Ian Dunt Rips Labour Split Over ‘Meaningless’ Ceasefire Semantics
Political journalist Ian Dunt ripped those resigning the Labour Party for creating a pointless “moral binary” in their insistence that party leader Sir Keir Starmer call for a ceasefire in Gaza, rather than an “humanitarian pause.”
Dunt was speaking to host Kay Burley on Sky News on Monday after it was announced 11 Labour members of Burnley Council resigned from the party over Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire and repeated calls for “humanitarian pauses.” His stance also led to backlash and revolt from prominent elected Labour politicians, such as London mayor Sadiq Khan and Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who have called for an outright ceasefire.
Dunt argued that the distinction was pointless, that Starmer’s stance was “inconsequential” since he is not in government and that those insisting on a ceasefire were “setting up” a “moral binary” in order to attack Starmer and his shadow ministers.
“How much trouble is Keir Starmer in?” Burley asked.
“I can’t imagine that it’s going to be a severe problem,” said Dunt. “I accept that this is one of those most significant challenges to his leadership that he’s faced, but you ultimately drill down into it and you’re just like what is this about? Are people really going to be quitting the Labour Party?”
He continued: “Keir Starmer hasn’t made a single executive decision though, for what’s going on in Israel or Gaza in his entire life. I mean, it seems completely inconsequential. Secondly, the distinction that is being raised between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire seems to me to be completely meaningless, like there’s no way you’re ever going to get to a ceasefire without it starting as a humanitarian pause. So just setting it up as this sort of moral binary that authorises people to use the most vicious language towards people like [Shadow Health Secretary] Wes Streeting and [Shadow Foreign Secretary] David Lammy coming from the left seems to me to be really quite completely unsound.”
Starmer has sided with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the United States government, and the European Union in advocating for “humanitarian pauses” in the Israel-Hamas conflict. In a speech delivered Friday he insisted that calls for a ceasefire and for humanitarian pauses were “coming from the same place” and sought to clarify his stance, arguing an humanitarian pause was the quickest way to get aid to Gazans without political negotiation.
Importantly, others have observed that in calling for a pause have argued that there is a distinction in definition in that an “humanitarian pause” coincides with support for Israel’s self-defence rights against Hamas.
