diff --git a/fs/ext2/ext2.mk b/fs/ext2/ext2.mk
index 7417f81cf0..cfb34c4565 100644
--- a/fs/ext2/ext2.mk
+++ b/fs/ext2/ext2.mk
@@ -20,12 +20,11 @@ ifneq ($(strip $(BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_EXT2_RESBLKS)),0)
 EXT2_OPTS += -r $(BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_EXT2_RESBLKS)
 endif
 
-# Not qstrip-ing the variable, because it may contain spaces, but we must
-# qstrip it when checking. Furthermore, we need to further quote it, so
-# that the quotes do not get eaten by the echo statement when creating the
-# fakeroot script
-ifneq ($(call qstrip,$(BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_EXT2_LABEL)),)
-EXT2_OPTS += -l '$(BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_EXT2_LABEL)'
+# qstrip results in stripping consecutive spaces into a single one. So the
+# variable is not qstrip-ed to preserve the integrity of the string value.
+EXT2_LABEL := $(subst ",,$(BR2_TARGET_ROOTFS_EXT2_LABEL))
+ifneq ($(EXT2_LABEL),)
+EXT2_OPTS += -l "$(EXT2_LABEL)"
 endif
 
 ROOTFS_EXT2_DEPENDENCIES = host-mke2img