Paul Bristow is first frontbencher to lose job over calling for an end to hostilities in Israel-Hamas war
A Conservative MP has been sacked from his government job after breaking ranks to publicly urge Rishi Sunak to back a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Bristow, who No 10 said had been sacked because his comments “were not consistent with the principles of collective responsibility”, becomes the first frontbencher on either side of the Commons to lose their job for calling for an end to hostilities. In further comments on his Facebook page, Bristow said: “Ordinary Palestinians are not Hamas. I struggle to see how Israel is any safer following thousands of deaths of innocent Palestinians. They should not suffer collective punishment for the crimes of Hamas.”
Downing Street said Bristow, the MP for Peterborough, had been asked to leave his job as a parliamentary private secretary for breaking rank. The Labour leader has backed the government’s diplomatic push for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting to allow aid into Gaza and for people trapped in the bombarded territory to leave.
Some pro-Palestinian protesters have chanted the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during recent demonstrations in London. Originally a call for a secular state in historic Palestine between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, it soon became a sectarian slogan and – when used in the context of Hamas – interpreted as an antisemitic call to drive all Jews from the region by whatever means.
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