SIR KEIR STARMER faced rising pressure to resign today as 11 more councillors quit Labour over his “nonsensical” refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Burnley councillors described their memberships as “untenable” given the party leader’s refusal to go beyond his call for “humanitarian pauses” amid the escalating conflict.

Among them is council leader Afrasiab Anwar, who said they had tried “everything we could by working within the party,” and issued a joint call with Pendle borough councillor Asjad Mahmood for Sir Keir to resign over his leadership on the issue.

Mr Anwar said: “We just can’t stand by watching and being part of a party that is not speaking out, or at the very least calling for a ceasefire.

“Instead of talking of peace all of our world leaders, including the leader of the Labour Party, are talking about humanitarian pauses. It is just nonsensical.

“I just don’t think the message is getting through in terms of how our communities, right across the board, are feeling about this.”

He said the councillors had engaged with a host of senior Labour figures — including shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and deputy leader Angela Rayner — to express their concerns and also written to Sir Keir, as well as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Shadow leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell MP said: “We don’t want to see anyone resigning from the Labour Party, not least hard-working councillors from Burnley or elsewhere.”

She claimed the party’s divisions only stemmed from the means of ending “this cycle of violence in the Middle East that’s gone on for decades” via a “peaceful, political solution based on a two-state solution, based on a free and secure Palestine and a free and secure Israel.”

Yasmin Qureshi, Jess Phillips and Imran Hussain are among 16 Labour frontbenchers, and a third of the entire parliamentary party, who have now either called for a ceasefire or shared others’ calls backing a ceasefire on social media.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham have challenged the Labour leader’s stance.

Some 30 Labour councillors have already resigned from the party over his record on the recent crisis.

Sir Keir insists that his focus is not on the “individual positions” of party members.