Ed Miliband is living proof that you can’t keep a bad man down. Miliband is the most destructive politician of my lifetime, a man who has had a calamitous impact not just on Britain but globally. But instead of being consigned to the outer reaches of the universe, way hay and up he rises – every time. Now – astonishingly, shamefully – the next stage of his career begins, this time as foreign secretary.
Miliband’s time as Labour leader coincided with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad using Sarin gas to butcher 1,400 people – thus crossing the supposed “red line” which President Obama had set against the use of chemical weapons. In response, Obama planned a military strike with the UK and France.
The then PM, David Cameron, promised that the Commons would be able to vote on such operations – and Miliband, in the single most shameful decision taken by any mainstream politician of my lifetime, whipped Labour MPs to oppose action against Assad’s chemical weapons. With some Conservative and Lib Dem MPs also voting against, the motion was defeated and action was vetoed. That in turn led Obama to take fright, lest he suffer a similar fate in Congress.
A clear message was sent to Assad that he was free to carry on using chemical weapons, which he did. A similar message of Western pusillanimity was also heard by Vladimir Putin, who invaded the Crimea the following year.
That vote alone should have been enough to destroy Miliband forever. But not only has he survived that, he has been untouched by another catastrophic decision. As Labour leader, Miliband changed the rules by which his successor would be elected – opening up the contest to non-members on payment of £3. That led to a landslide victory for Jeremy Corbyn, which not only plunged Labour into a cesspit of Jew hate but unleashed even more via Corbyn’s supporters on social media and the wider world. Miliband is thus also responsible for another of the most disastrously consequential decisions of recent years.
Add to that his recent period as energy secretary, and the headlong ideologically-driven pursuit of Net Zero, and Miliband’s legacy is not merely worse than that of any other mainstream politician but is diabolically, unspeakably shameful, and it is difficult to imagine a worse choice of foreign secretary. We are now to be represented globally by the man who gave Assad the green light to murder his own people with chemical weapons.
And it does not take a strategic genius to work out what comes next now Miliband is installed in the FCDO. Even before becoming PM, last week Andy Burnham singled out Israel for special, extra opprobrium. With Labour MPs in fear of the campaign to turf them out and replace them with sectarian Muslim MPs at the next election, it is obvious that the next stage in Labour policy will be wider measures – and sanctions – against Israel. And we all know what the response will be when Burnham is criticised for singling out the world’s only Jewish state for attack. Even his Jewish foreign secretary supports him.
A foreign secretary, that is, who should be in penance, not in office.
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