Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from Labour frontbenchers to change tack and back calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. There are now more than a dozen such MPs who have defied the party line to call for one, along with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

This morning, shadow science, innovation and technology secretary Peter Kyle appeared to introduce a new line into the debate, saying it was ‘dancing on the head of a pin’ to differentiate between a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause. Starmer has backed the latter.

Starmer cannot keep releasing statements on Twitter: it just suggests that he is being chipped away at

Kyle first used this line on the BBC’s Sunday programme, and then again on Times Radio, suggesting it wasn’t a slip of the tongue. He initially argued in his BBC interview that the party was ‘united’, then said ‘some of the calls for a broader ceasefire: it’s just too ambiguous to know what it means in practice and what it means for Israel in terms of securing the release of the hostages’. A few questions later, he was pushed again on the calls for a ceasefire: ‘People are calling for a ceasefire, we are calling for a pause. So we can, look, we can dance on the head of a pin about what the nature of a ceasefire, but we know what is happening right now.’

When he appeared on Times Radio a little while later, he said: ‘When I’ve heard some of the interviews from some of those people and and many, many others about what they actually mean by a ceasefire within their terms, actually it means many different things to different people. So what Keir has done is put forward a pause. I mean, you know, we end up dancing on the head of a pin over the nature of a ceasefire. But I don’t want to diminish that, you know, aspect of it.‘

There is a big difference between a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause and it would be absurd to claim otherwise in order to minimise internal differences. I understand that the official party line remains the same. A party source says: ‘We’re clear that we aren’t calling for a ceasefire. A humanitarian pause is our ask, completely in line with the government and international allies.’

So what does Starmer do now? I understand from some of those who have been expressing concern in public that the party leadership and its whips have been extremely active in talking to them behind the scenes, and trying to persuade them not to take the line they have.

There is now, though, a critical mass of MPs pushing against Starmer’s line, and he is not out in front either with disciplinary measures or his own argument. After his meeting with Muslim Labour MPs last week, he released a statement that didn’t change his line but which emphasised the work he was doing on aid and calling for a humanitarian pause. But Starmer cannot keep releasing statements on Twitter: it just suggests that he is being chipped away at and responding to events rather than leading.

It would be extremely difficult to sack those frontbenchers who have defied him. Not all of them are Muslim themselves, but they all have significant Muslim populations in their constituencies. Given this row started because Labourites were upset that Starmer didn’t seem to be paying sufficient heed to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, a mass dismissal would just add to that impression.

Starmer could instead say that he is not changing his line on Israel’s right to defend itself and that therefore a ceasefire is the wrong thing to call for. He could, though, say he is going to allow those frontbenchers who disagree with him to voice their concerns, so long as they know it isn’t going to change the official party line that they’ll hear from him, or David Lammy, or any other shadow cabinet minister. This would make him appear magnanimous and sufficiently confident to carry on leading above the noise.

Starmer does have cover to take this approach. The MP Ben Bradshaw is a very pro-Palestine former Foreign Office minister who is urging Starmer to stick to his line. He tells me: ‘As a longstanding supporter of Labour Friends of Palestine, I hope Keir holds firm. Apart from his clumsy slip on LBC, everything he has said and done has been spot on. Calls for a ceasefire now, while Hamas still holds hostages and is raining rockets on Israel, will achieve nothing and makes those calling for it look impotent. If this feels intolerably hard for some colleagues, wait till we’re in government.’

There is just one problem. Starmer hasn’t asked that many questions of Rishi Sunak since 7 October, preferring instead to voice support for Israel and consensus with the government’s approach.

But there is one question he asked, at Prime Minister’s Questions last week:

This is a crisis where lives hang in the balance and where the enemies of peace and democracy would like nothing more than for us to become divided and to abandon our values. Does the Prime Minister agree that, during this grave crisis, the House must strive to speak with one voice in condemnation of terror, in support of Israel’s right to self-defence and for the dignity of all human life, which cannot be protected without humanitarian access to those suffering in Gaza and the constant maintenance of the rule of international law?

If Starmer really meant that the House had to speak with one voice on Israel’s right to defend itself, he needs to be much bolder in explaining why he doesn’t think a ceasefire would be in keeping with that. And why he is happy for his own frontbenchers to speak with other voices.