The government has been accused of “not being serious” about national security as it focuses criticism on Israel rather than Iran and opens new refugee routes from Gaza without revealing how it will deal with the potential extremism threat.
The vocal criticism from across the political spectrum comes amid rising threats to the Jewish community from Islamists.
Days ago it was revealed that a Hamas member who had been given asylum in the UK was alleged to have taken part in a terror plot.
This week also saw an alleged plot targeting an RAF base, and speculation that it was mastermind by Iran, a claim the Islamic Republic denies.
At the Labour Party annual conference in Liverpool – the first under Andy Burnham as prime minister – foreign secretary Ed Miliband devoted much of his keynote speech on Monday to impassioned rhetoric targeting Israel over settlements in the West Bank and the plight of the Palestinian people.
To ringing applause from activists in the conference hall, he said: “I want to say to the millions of people in this country, and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people, we hear you.
“You were right. And under Andy’s leadership, we have reset our approach.
“We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out the evidence of war crimes In Gaza. We call out Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. And we match words with actions.”
The speech came after the foreign secretary’s visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly last week, where he was photographed meeting his Tehran opposite number, Abbas Araghchi.
Miliband’s focus on Israel as opposed to Iran in his conference speech has raised further concern within large sections of the Jewish community, following on from the recent introduction of sanctions targeting West Bank settlements.
One Jewish communal source quipped to the JC after the speech: “Was that about 30 seconds on Iran? And about how many minutes on Israel?”
The government has also been criticised for announcing new routes for refugees from Gaza so shortly after it was revealed that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s bodyguard was given asylum and British citizenship.
Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, declared in her speech to conference that from next month the government would begin to allow charities and non-profit organisations to “sponsor refugees through our new safe and legal routes”.
She added that the government would “reopen the UK Resettlement Route in partnership with the United Nations” in order to “take vulnerable refugees from across the world” including “Palestinians who have fled the horrors of Gaza” and women from Afghanistan”.
The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) said it had written to the home secretary to demand specific answers “on how identity and security checks will work”, “whether ‘cultural orientation’ for new arrivals will address extremism and antisemitism explicitly” and “the steps which can be taken to remove a person from this country if serious security concerns emerge after arrival”.
Reacting to the speeches, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said that Labour were “not serious about our borders or our national security”.
He accused Mahmood of being “busy squabbling with her cabinet colleagues” while the government were “opening our borders further”.
The Conservative frontbencher also attacked Miliband and criticised his decision to be pictured with Iran’s foreign minister. “And at a time when Jewish communities face rising aggression and abuse, Ed Miliband sees fit to shake hands with the Iranian foreign minister and impose sanctions on our Israeli allies,” he said. “The Labour government cannot say that it is determined to confront extremism.”
Lord Walney, the government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption, was also critical of Miliband’s decision to be pictured shaking hands with Iran’s foreign minister.
The former Labour MP told the JC that the move compounded the “sense of downgrading security”.
Walney added that it was “a terrible moment for the British foreign secretary to send a signal that the country remains a valued part of the international network despite its active campaign of plotting terrorist violence on UK soil”.
Commenting on both speeches, he said: “This has been a concerning start by Andy Burnham’s government on the issue that is the first duty of any government – to keep its citizens safe.”
“The desire to create an additional asylum route to the UK for Palestinians is laudable, but there is growing and disturbing evidence that Hamas can play the system and bring their extremism and terrorism to Britain.”
The speeches also resulted in some criticism from within the party, with one Labour source telling the JC that Labour’s leadership seemed “obsessed with sounding tougher on the Israelis when we have far bigger problems on our own doorstep”.
They blasted Miliband’s conference speech as being “full of self-congratulatory nonsense that ignores reality: British Jews are leaving this country because of Islamist extremism and we’re scared of addressing that head-on”.
The timing of the announcement on refugees was also criticised. “It’s like we want to hand Nigel Farage the keys to No10,” they lamented.
The leader of Reform UK was emphatic in his opposition to Labour’s proposals, saying on X: “As if this weekend’s revelations about Hamas operatives in our midst wasn’t enough. Now Labour wants to mass import more people under the guise of ‘international obligations.’ I want to be extremely clear. Britain is not obligated to take in more migrants, and under a Reform government these people will not be able to stay.”
At the Labour conference, Palestinian ambassador to the UK welcomed the measures introduced by Miliband, saying: “I believe this is Palestine’s South Africa moment,” referring to the anti-apartheid movement.
The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.
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