Gaza Bloc of MPs waste no time making their demands known to Starmer.

Right, so the new Gaza Bloc of Independent MPs are showing they are not wasted votes and are not going to be ineffective by making sure they are going to be seen, going to be heard and have wasted no time in doing so, having now issued a collective set of demands to the new Foreign Secretary David Lammy outlining their demands regarding the conflict, which the Tories conduct regarding was supremely suspicious. Already having come under attack by decidedly bitter defeated Labour MPs, Independents and smaller parties, such as the Greens are not wasted votes, do have clout because they can build consensus in a cross party manner arguably more easily, not carrying the baggage of larger parties, and can speak out and question authority as much as any other MP can, but as this move also shows, they’re going to be amongst the most interesting groups in parliament to watch, because they will highlight issues, such as Gaza, when nobody else wants to talk about it. Well, they aren’t going to get a choice.
Right, so that was Jonathan Ashworth there, taking the loss of his Leicester South seat, despite him holding 22,000 vote majority with such good grace, firmly blaming the campaign of local optician Shockat Adam for him losing, the entitlement of this guy is off the charts, what exactly do you think the people of Leicester South owe you Ashworth? You’re a Starmer loyalist right up to the point of attacking Bengali migrants, most of whom will have been Muslim, in a constituency that is one third Muslim itself, didn’t vote for a ceasefire until Starmer said it was OK to vote for his version of one, his promise of one, worth as little as that is frankly, with all the shenanigans of the previous vote that the SNP brought last November, still fresh in many people’s minds for whom the issue of Gaza is an important one. And for some reason you are angry, shocked and appalled not at your conduct as vile as that has been, as offensive to so many of your constituents as they clearly was, that you lost your seat to a guy now part of what is being referred to as the Gaza Bloc of MPs, Five independents for whom the issue of Gaza will not be allowed to be ignored or forgotten no matter how big Keir Starmer’s majority might be. That seat didn’t belong to you, you had no entitlement to it, so knock of the theatrics, lose with some dignity and crack on with your new job, taking over at the top of the Starmerroid Labour Together think tank, after the previous boss, naturally offered a parliamentary candidacy, Josh Simons, got elected MP for Makersfield. You fell on your feet still, get over yourself.
But to Shockat Adam himself, not to mention those other 4 Gaza Bloc MPs, Jeremy Corbyn, Iqbal Mohamed, Adnan Hussain and Ayoub Khan, they are not sitting idly on the opposition benches, they are not pointless MPs, having been voted in with no power whatsoever, as the likes of Ashworth and fellow bad loser also doing the media rounds right now a lot, Thangham Debonnaire imply they and in Debonnaires case having lost to Carla Denyer, the Green Party, because they can raise issues now not being raised by the former MP that are important to constituents, and for as much as these and others jeer smaller parties and independent MPs as powerless, they miss the primary role of said MPs and that is to represent their constituents and not just party lines. In that regard you couldn’t vote better than for an independent or a Green since neither operate a party whipping system for one thing, so they will always be better local MPs than anyone else, because they are free to do exactly as mandated by the people who voted them in!
In no small part were these 5 independent MPs though, elected because all of them had Palestine as a significant part of their campaign, when neither major party would do so and their actions told people that far more loudly than any campaigning during the election did and as such, they’ve come together as this pro Palestine grouping, this Gaza Bloc as they’ve become known as and have now issued a set of demands to Labour’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, outlining their expectations for this Labour government in regards to the ongoing conflict and genocide happening at Israel’s hands in Gaza.
‘Dear Foreign Secretary,
We the undersigned, have been elected by our respective constituents, in part, to represent their concerns regarding the ongoing catastrophic situation in Gaza, which has been described by the International Court of Justice as a ‘plausible genocide.’
There is no doubt that you will be aware that the situation on the ground in Gaza worsens moment by moment. The urgency for action cannot be overstated.
As of the 9th of July, a group of independent UN experts have declared that famine has now spread throughout the Gaza Strip, with the recent deaths of more Palestinian children due to hunger and malnutrition solidifying the urgency of the matter.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health holds the death toll since October 7th at 38,000. However, a study published in the journal, The Lancet, estimates that even a conservative measure of the death toll in Gaza could exceed 186,000. The study points out that the official death toll does not take into account the thousands of people buried under the rubble, nor the indirect deaths caused by the destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems and the break-down of other public infrastructure. In addition, the study finds that disease and starvation will lead to many more deaths in the long term.
Given the above highlighted factors, and in light of the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice, we write to remind you of your government’s obligations under international law.
We call upon you to undertake the following actions as a matter of urgency:
1. Immediately suspend all provision of weapons and weapon systems to the Government of Israel;
2. Immediately restore and increase UK funding to UNRWA, and take all necessary steps to ensure the safe access and delivery of essential supplies and medical aid to the civilian population of Gaza;
3. Issue a public statement supporting the implementation of measures as advised by the International Court of Justice;
4. Drop any legal challenge over the ICC’s right to seek an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes;
5. Issue a public statement to announce the cessation of the challenge to the International Criminal Court, concerning the arrest arrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu;
6. Utilise the United Kingdom’s position as a permanent member state on the United Nation’s Security Council to advocate for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire;
7. Facilitate and engage in exhausting all diplomatic efforts to secure the prompt release of all hostages;
8. Advocate for the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force to Gaza, upon reaching a ceasefire agreement;
9. Impose sanctions on individuals and entities inciting genocide against Palestinians;
10. Suspend the 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations and negotiations towards an expanded trade agreement, and consider the possibility of imposing sanctions;
11. Recognise the State of Palestine with immediate effect.
We urge you to implement these actions as crucial steps towards the alleviation of a catastrophic situation in Gaza, and fulfil the obligations of the United Kingdom under International Law.’
If you wanted an idea of the sort of action we’d have seen under a Corbyn government, under a proper left wing government not under the thrall of the Israel Lobby as Starmer’s Labour and the Tories are, then this is it and fundamentally this is all stuff we as signatories to the UN Charter, the ICC and ICJ jurisdictions and as UN Security Council permanent members the UK as a minimum is required by law to meet and by virtue of it’s powerful international position, campaign and vote for. It is political will that has not seen this done already and likely won’t see Labour act on either and I can back that comment up by the way, but equally this is the power small groups of MPs can bring to bear in parliament. This is an issue they will keep raising for as long as it takes, an issue that if Labour had been taking seriously already, they wouldn’t lose seats and support over, but the need to raise these points and raise them with Starmer’s government to demand they act are legitimate.
Take restoring funding to UNRWA, the Unite Nations Relief & Works Agency. Most countries that withdrew funding, have restored it after Israel’s lies about evidence UNRWA were working with Hamas, or some of their workers were, failed to materialise. The UK has still not restored funding. Labour called for this funding to be restored back in April, yet a week into the job, they still haven’t done this themselves. Why not? What is the hold up? UNRWA are pretty much all that make life sustainable in Gaza, but Israel hate them, so is that why Labour won’t do it, or haven’t done it with immediate effect having come to power?
There’s the legal challenge the Tories made to try and protect Netanyahu from an arrest warrant which has now delayed the ICC reaching a decision on this by another month at least. Why have Labour not just abandoned this shameless attempt to protect a genocidal maniac?
Why have weapons sales not been suspended yet, surely you’ve looked at that legal advice the Tories were hiding behind haven’t you? What gives? All of these and more are ample reason to question Labour’s desire to work towards a peaceful resolution and more that the Tories were and it is right that MPs should hold them to account for this, but where few would do so when the Tories ran the country, now there is a bloc of MPs elected to parliament, to do exactly this, and they aren’t wasting time getting on with it and it’s great to see. Starmer must have his life made as difficult as possible over this, to see a shift.
Meanwhile I covered more detail of the findings of The Lancet article that was mentioned in that Gaza Bloc notice, why the Gaza Ministry of Health’s figures are likely underestimating the true death toll, get more on that story, horrifying story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.