What has Ed Miliband just done? It’s worse than you think.
Ed Miliband has a new mission, and it’s going to end badly (Image: Getty)
When Andy Burnham appointed Miliband as foreign secretary, many saw it as a sop. He owed Miliband for helping to make him PM but he didn’t dare make him chancellor, the job he craved. The bond market would go into meltdown at the thought of Red Ed running the nation’s finances. Miliband seemed surprisingly pleased. Now we know why. He’s transported his radical posturing into equally delicate areas of foreign policy. We’re going to regret it for decades.
Miliband’s decision to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank has triggered a furious diplomatic row with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and risks worsening relations with Donald Trump’s US. Critics have called the sanctions “performative”, warning they could backfire spectacularly making Britain a more dangerous place. In other words, classic Miliband.
In his role as energy secretary, Miliband grandiosely declared he was on a “clean energy superpower mission”. But his real superpower is acting as an agent of chaos. We’re now paying wind farms £1.5billion a year for power our grid can’t use, and blocking new North Sea oil and gas licences while furiously importing all we can from abroad, often with higher emissions. Madness. But Miliband doesn’t care. It’s the performance that counts.
We saw that when he opposed military action against Bashar al-Assad’s regime after its chemical weapons attack on civilians in 2013. Still more Syrian civilians died horrible deaths as a result. On Miliband’s watch, Labour’s 2015 general election campaign descended into chaos too. Undeterred, he’s tried to make up for that failure by doubling down on every radical impulse he ever had.
So now we have British sanctions against a key regional ally. Once that has shared intelligence with us, and helped to stop domestic terror attacks. As ever, Miliband claims to be a moral force, while engaging in dirty party politics. It’s a desperate move to shore up Labour’s Muslim and radical activist vote, which drifted to Zack Polanski’s unhinged Greens in protest at Keir Starmer‘s stance on Gaza.
These are treacherous waters. I usually keep well clear. Any outsider who gets sucked into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs to take a serious look at their motivations. But Miliband is not a serious politician. He just thinks he is.
I’d love to see a peaceful and prosperous two-state solution, but nothing I can say or do will bring that about. As a Brit, I’m more worried about the impact on our own fragile state. Because Gaza risks tearing our country apart too.
The far left is all over Israel. It’s where left-wing activism meets Islamism. That combustible mix tore Labour apart under Jeremy Corbyn, now it’s running riot inside Polanski’s Greens.
Polanski dived headfirst into the Gaza depths. Miliband has recklessly dragged us deeper. This won’t satisfy the Islamists or activists, who will now push Miliband to go further. Which he may well do.
Labour MPs are terrifed of losing their seats to radical Greens at the next election. Labour is worried about the upcoming by-election in Holborn and St Pancras, Keir Starmer’s former seat. Polanski is standing for the Greens. A Labour defeat would pour humiliation on Andy Burnham.
I can see the temptation to punish West Bank settlers. By grabbing Palestinian land, in areas where Hamas doesn’t hold sway, they risk vindicating claims that Israel is engineering genocide.
This conflict will run for decades, if not centuries. Britain has been implicated since the Balfour Declaration in 1917. People are still arguing about it more than a century later. We’ll probably be arguing about today’s sanctions 100 years from now.
Ed Miliband has acted out of short-term party political advantage. Now the country will have to pay for decades. And possibly a lot longer than that.