The shadow transport secretary has accused Labour of ‘caving into pressure from the back benches’ – after the government announced it is partially suspending around 30 arms export licences to Israel. Helen Whatley also said it is ‘really hard for Israel to swallow, so soon after we saw Hamas murder six hostages'. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00One of the concerns I have about this is the timing, and it's really hard for Israel to
00:07swallow so soon after we saw Hamas murder those six hostages, and in fact when Hamas
00:14is still holding hostages.
00:16So the timing is something which is particularly, I guess, uncomfortable and difficult.
00:23I think it's very important that we are clear that we stand firm in our support for Israel
00:28as a country, while of course having concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza,
00:32wanting to make sure that aid gets to people in Gaza and that there is a ceasefire as soon
00:36as possible.
00:37Something that I'm concerned about is whether this is a sign of Labour caving into pressure
00:41from backbenchers on Gaza.
00:43We know that lots of backbenchers have had a lot of pressure from constituents on this,
00:47and it's important that government does the right thing, not just to do what those backbenchers
00:52pressure it into doing.