If it’s Yom Kippur, it must be time for an Ed Miliband video. And not just any video, but one revelling in the kicking he has given Israel.
As a self-described “proud British Jew” – the words the Foreign Secretary used to open his Commons statement earlier this month when announcing his sanctions against the Jewish state – one might wonder why Ed Miliband (the man, never forget, responsible for foisting Jeremy Corbyn on us when he changed the voting rules for the Labour leadership) chose Yom Kippur of all days to release his latest video. It’s Ed Miliband, after all, who has chosen to make a big deal about his being a Jewish foreign secretary attacking Israel. It’s Ed Miliband who has put his religion front and centre of his Middle East policy (or, more accurately, of his attempt to appease the sectarian Muslim vote).
It is of course Miliband’s business alone what he chooses to do on Yom Kippur. But it’s everyone’s business to note it, if they so wish, given his use of his Judaism as a way of “koshering” his stance on Israel.
But let’s focus on what he said in the video, rather than the incongruence of the date on which he said it. Let me quote him in full: “This government’s approach to foreign policy is simple: strong in our values, bold in our action, relentless in the alliances we build. You saw that approach with what we did about Israel and Palestine, calling out what was happening in Gaza and the West Bank and taking action.
“This week at the UN General Assembly, we'll be confronting all of the major issues that the world faces: standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine against Russian aggression, finding a solution to the wider conflict we have in the Middle East, which is crucial for protecting the cost of living at home, making climate a national security issue, and dealing with the future of AI.
“This government is going to be stronger, bolder, and relentless in pursuing our values, and that's what I'm looking forward to doing in New York this week.”
Miliband is a caricature of himself. Much of his statement is gibberish. That which isn’t is sophistry. What, for example, does “relentless in the alliances we build” mean? That we will force ourselves on other nations as allies, whether they want it or not? If it means anything else, it’s a statement of the obvious – meaning merely that we will look for allies. Well, duh.
Miliband then has the gall to cite sanctions on Israel – our key strategic, military and intelligence ally in the Middle East – as an example of being “relentless in the alliances we build”. Relentless in damaging British interests, rather, turning further on an ally we had already treated as an enemy since July 2024. The only alliance Miliband built was one of other Western nations which sought to treat Israel as an enemy, weakening the West against the Islamist threat and damaging national security because he is so scared on losing votes to the Greens and sectarian Muslims.
Miliband says he is “focused on finding a solution to the wider conflict we have in the Middle East”. He may be foreign secretary, but he gives the impression he has never actually spoken to anyone in the Middle East since taking the job. Britain is now regarded with barely concealed contempt, not only by Israel – for obvious reasons – but by Arab states.
In this week’s Spectator, Tim Shipman describes the impact of Labour’s policy on the region: "’The Israelis are light years ahead of all the Arab services,’ the second intelligence source adds. But in Whitehall it is little understood that Miliband’s decision has also damaged relations with Gulf Arab states, which rely on intelligence passed to MI6 by the Israelis. This is an element with which Blaise Metreweli, the chief of MI6, would be very familiar, having served in Oman. ‘The Gulfies come to us because they know that we have a good relationship with Israel and they know that basically they’re getting Israeli product,’ a security source says. ‘They can’t get it directly, but they want it, they need it. They’re looking at us going, “What the f**k are you doing falling out with them?” A Labour source who spoke recently to senior figures in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE says: ‘Not one of them thinks we have gained influence from this. They just think we’re increasingly irrelevant. The Saudis and Qatar are downgrading their investments in the UK.’”
A few days before he released his Yom Kippur message, another video of Miliband started doing the rounds. It has already become the subject of many internet memes.
The foreign secretary is seen doing his full-on Ed Miliband impression, asking a waitress, “I’d like a fruity vegan flap jack please”.
It needs to be watched, since words cannot do the full cringe justice. The problem is that it will have been watched, by the likes of Putin, Xi Jinping and the rest of Britain’s enemies. And they will have seen the same as the rest of us: that our foreign secretary is a bad joke.
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