KEIR Starmer suffered a major rebellion in the Commons on Wednesday during a vote on an SNP amendment calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The amendment unequivocally condemned the horrific killings and taking of hostages by Hamas, demanded an end to the collective punishment of the people of Gaza, called for the release of all hostages, an end to the siege of the territory in order to allow vital supplies of food, medicine and fuel to reach the civilian population, and further called on all parties in the conflict to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

It was a humanitarian amendment which was not making party political points. It did not take sides in the conflict. Its aim was purely the welfare and safety of innocent people on both sides who have been caught up in this dreadful violence and destruction.

The SNP is the only major party calling for an immediate ceasefire, and in so doing has displayed a courageous moral leadership which is starkly absent from the Labour and Conservative parties. We expect this sort of thing from the morally and intellectually bankrupt Conservatives, but the Labour party likes to present itself as the party with a moral compass. Yet under Starmer (below), on this issue as on so many others, Labour meekly follows along with the right-wing British nationalist consensus established by the Conservatives and their allies in a press which Starmer is too afraid to challenge.

The National: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (Andy Buchanan/PA)

In total, 56 Labour MPs defied Starmer's instructions not to support the SNP amendment. Some of them resigned their front bench positions in order to back it. Others were summarily sacked. Those 56 MPs did not include either of the two Labour MPs representing Scottish constituencies. Both Ian Murray and the Labour new boy Michael Shanks meekly obeyed Starmer's instructions to abstain on the SNP amendment, instead voting for Starmer's much weaker one which reiterated support for Israel and stopped well short of calling for a ceasefire – a position which is fundamentally the same as that of the Conservatives.

The most high profile resignation was that of Jess Phillips, who said in her resignation letter: "On this occasion I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and Palestine."

These were not apparently qualms felt by Murray or Shanks, whose pre by-election insistence that he was not going to Westminster in order to be mere lobby fodder for Keir Starmer evaporated pretty quickly.

READ MORE: Richard Murphy: Labour's mirroring of Tory tactics spells dangerous times

Anas Sarwar, who as recently as October 27 was calling for a ceasefire, also failed to call on the two MPs he would like us to believe are answerable to him to support a ceasefire. Indeed, Sarwar himself has now obediently fallen into line with his boss in Westminster.

Memories of Labour's shameful role in the Iraq war are still fresh in Scotland. The failure of Labour's two Scottish MPs to back calls for a ceasefire when thousands are being killed and hundreds of thousands are being dispossessed brings that moral nadir of the Labour party back into focus. Despite all those years in the political wilderness in Scotland, it's abundantly clear that the Labour party has learned nothing at all, and if Scotland is foolish enough to vote for more Labour MPs when the next General Election comes around they will be spineless puppets who will obediently do Starmer's bidding and will help him to impose conservative policies on Scotland.

Rishi Sunak’s Supreme Court woes

In response to the UK Supreme Court ruling that the Conservatives' flagship policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is illegal, Rishi Sunak has responded with a reality-defying statement. He vowed that he'd never allow a foreign court to block a British government's legislation, seemingly hoping that no one would notice that the UK Supreme Court is not a foreign court.

And Sunak's new Home Secretary James Cleverly (below) was conspicuously forced to deny that he had called the Rwanda policy batsh*t crazy.

The National: Home Secretary James Cleverly has been tasked with making the Rwanda plan work, despite it being

This unlawful and insane policy has so far cost the taxpayer at least £140 million without sending a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.

Sunak's big idea is for Westminster to pass legislation declaring that Rwanda is a safe country to which to send asylum seekers – even though it manifestly is not. It's the political equivalent of an angry toddler having a temper tantrum. In a democracy, bound by the rule of law, a government will change its policy to fit the law. What we have with the Tories is a Prime Minister no one voted for changing the law and suspending reality to fit his policy.

That looks suspiciously like a dictatorship.

With all this going on, naturally the top priority of the Scottish Tories and the Scottish media is Michael Matheson's roaming charges, which come in at a mere 0.0079% of the public money the Tories have squandered on their Rwanda policy.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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