UK's Labour Party leader faces stiff opposition from 50 MPs over occupied Kashmir statement

LONDON: Fifty Labour Party parliamentarians have told the new Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, that his recent statement on Indian occupied Kashmir after a meeting with Labour Friends of India is unacceptable, illegal, and historically wrong and he must clarify his position or face open defiance.

This correspondent has learned that Starmer faced a strong challenge and threats of open public defiance during a meeting on Thursday with his party's parliamentarians. 

It is understood that the Labour leader has agreed to issue a statement to ease the feeling of outrage within the 1.5 million strong British Kashmiri and Pakistani community.

Most of the Labour MPs who participated in the meeting have traditionally spoken in favour of human rights and the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people and against Indian atrocities. However, several new MPs were also part of the meeting. 

At least three MPs confirmed that the Labour leader was told in clear cut terms that statements made after his meeting with Indian lobbyists were completely unacceptable and in defiance of the historical Labour position on Kashmir and human rights.

The Labour leader was told during the meeting that his comments on occupied Kashmir were seen by thousands of Labour supporters as insulting and an effort at appeasement of Modi-led fascism.

Separately, Labour left groups have spoken out to defy Starmer's position on the occupied Kashmir conflict.

The Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), made up of MPs on the left of the party, has released a statement expressing “solidarity with the people of Kashmir in their struggle against the world’s largest military occupation” while stressing the group’s “internationalism acknowledges the role of British colonial injustices and the inalienable nature of universal human rights”.

The SCG includes shadow cabinet members Rebecca Long-Bailey, Marsha de Cordova, and Andy McDonald, plus several other frontbenchers, such as shadow ministers Dan Carden and Imran Hussein.

Labour left activists have also voiced their opposition to the policy, with new grassroots group Momentum Internationalists organising an open letter signed by hundreds of members that condemns the position expressed by Starmer.

Their statement explicitly states that the activists are “disturbed” by the comments, which were “in defiance of party policy”. It calls on the new leader to “respect our democracy and conference policy”.

The letter has been signed by hundreds of Labour councillors, trade unionists, officers of local Labour parties, executive members of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, and party activists from across the country

“We call on Keir Starmer and the party leadership to respect our democracy and conference policy, and to show it is serious about the fight for human rights, including in Kashmir," the statement said.

Row over occupied Kashmir

After Starmer’s call with Labour Friends of India executives last week, he had said: “We must not allow issues of the sub-continent to divide communities here. Any constitutional issues in India are a matter for the Indian Parliament, and Kashmir is a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve peacefully.”

Labour leader Lord Nazir Ahmed had told Geo.tv: “Starmer is wrong to suggest that the Kashmir issue is a constitutional issue and an internal issue for India. He has ignored his party policy, the 1995 and 2019 Labour Party Conference Resolutions, the 1997 Party Manifesto, and numerous commitments by the late Robin Cook, David Miliband, and Jeremy Corbyn. He has shown lack of judgment and diplomacy by suggesting that he will meet with the Indian High Commissioner and deliberately forgetting the Pakistani High Commissioner and his MPs of Kashmiri origins.”

Meanwhile, the British Muslim Women’s Forum (BMWF) and the Jammu Kashmir Self-determination Movement Women’s Wing have also written to Starmer expressing “disappointment” over his letter to the Hindu Forum Britain.

They told the Labour leader: “Kashmiri Labour women are proud members of the Labour Party but we will not remain silent on issues of injustices wherever they may occur. The Labour Party itself surely cannot remain silent in the face of the atrocities being committed in Indian controlled Kashmir. 

"The far-right BJP government under Narendra Modi has placed the Kashmiri people on total lockdown since August 5, 2019. We cannot believe that the Labour Party will not involve themselves in the Kashmir issue and stand by whilst Modi continues his strategy of ethnic cleansing and in effect removing the Kashmiri People’s right for self-determination by repealing Article 370.”