Up to 300 students boycotted an assembly with Labour MP West Streeting in protest to his party’s stance on Gaza.
The Labour leadership has maintained that it does not see a ceasefire as the right move amid the escalating conflict, which has seen more than 10,000 Palestinians killed.
“The difficulty with calls for a ceasefire is that it risks freezing the conflict in time, and also allowing Hamas to regroup and perpetrate further atrocities which they said, given the chance, they would absolutely do time and again”, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said today.
It comes as at least 16 shadow ministers have either called for a ceasefire or shared others’ calls on social media, while around 30 councillors have resigned from the party.
Signs that Labour could be out of step with the public on the matter have also come to the fore, with recent polling suggesting 75 per cent of Brits would like to see a ceasefire in the Middle East.
At one school in Ilford, Wes Streeting got a nasty surprise after hundreds of pupils boycotted an assembly he was attending.
According to Novara Media, around 300 17 and 18-year-olds at Beal High School in Ilford, east London, either refused to attend or walked out of the assembly last Friday.
“We heard Wes Streeting would be coming down to do a talk on university and personal statements,” one year 13 student involved, Amina, told the publication. “But as a year group, we wanted to show our support to those in Palestine.
“Keir Starmer [has] stated he does not support calls for a ceasefire. None of us agreed with this, so collectively we showed our position by not attending.”
According to a parent of a child at the school, which has a high number of Muslim students, Israel’s genocide in Gaza is “politicising young people like nothing has before”.
It comes as tens of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets on Saturday, despite government calls for it not to take place.
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