Kmflett's Blog

Ed Miliband became Foreign Secretary on 20th July and a statement has already made clear his position on some key issues:

“My parents came to Britain as Jewish refugees from the Nazis. To them, Britain was both a sanctuary and a beacon of hope in the global fight against fascism. I will carry my parents’ faith in that spirit of Britain to my role representing our country.

“I will be a Foreign Secretary who fights for Britain’s interests and our values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law on the world stage.”

He promised to maintain close ties with both the EU and the United States, as well as upholding Britain’s commitments to Nato and the United Nations. Miliband added: “The FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) I lead will also be at the forefront of issues which pose profound and substantial threats to justice and equality in Britain and across the world.

“We will work with others on tackling the climate crisis, strengthening our partnerships for international development, and reforming our international institutions so they deliver for all countries, including the world’s poorest people.”

Below is an extract from Ralph Miliband’s 1966 assessment in the Socialist Register, an annual survey which he co-edited with John Savill, of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government. I’ve picked out a section on foreign policy.

Of course Ed Miliband is not his father and he is certainly somehow required to echo his views, despite the persistent efforts of the right-wing media to suggest this. Even so he is on the left so to compare and contrast the positions is interesting. Sixty years different contexts apply politically and any analysis must account for that. However while US imperial power still exists, as it did in 1966 it is weaker having suffered a series of defeats.

Its not a question of reaching a judgement but of organising and campaigning for a left position. Here I think Ralph Miliband made some good points, albeit his views of course did vary over the years.

Ralph Miliband, Socialist Register 1966

As in  home affairs, so in  the field of foreign affairs, colonial affairs and defence. Whatever measure of comfort Labour supporters may be able  to find in some of the Government’s actions at home, there is no such  comfort to be found in relation to foreign and colonial affairs or defence policy. In  these fields, the  Government has shown a  degree of conservatism and orthodoxy more consistent and unswerv- ing than would  have been thought likely by even  very sceptical people before it was  elected, the writer included. After all, it was only a  few months before the  General Election  that  Mr. Wilson, then Leader of the  Opposition, asked the  then  Prime  Minister, Sir Alec Douglas Home, to “make it  quite clear-as we asked him to make it  clear in March-that we would  not support  any extension of the war into North Vietnam”;4 and it was only a  few months  before that that Mr. Wilson had said that “there never has been a  time  when the world, through the U.N., or the Commonwealth, has looked  more  anxiously to Britain for  a  lead,  a  lead  on disarmament-instead of tamely following  every  American statement-a  lead in  the attack on world poverty, a  positive stand  on racial  discrimination and racial oppres- ~ion”.~ Whether the world  was  waiting  quite so anxiously for Britain may be in  doubt, but if it was, it must  have  discovered its mistake fairly early  on in the  life of the Wilson Administration. For “tamely following every American  statement”, and act, and policy, is precisely what the Labour Government has  done throughout its period of office. The notion of a “special” British  relation to  the United States has  sometimes been discounted  in the recent  past. It should not be, for it has been reinvigorated by the Labour Government, in a  special sense: no government, apart from  satellite and client  states  proper, has been quite such an eager and faithful  supporter of American  pur- poses and enterprises. Vietnam  is of course  the most obvious as well as the most  ignoble instance of the spirit  which has moved Mr. Wilson and his colleagues. In the face of one of the clearest and most  authentic  cases in this century of a  popular struggle for  national and social  liberation, the Labour leaders  have not hesitated to support America’s attempts to drown that struggle in blood, or to endorse the most  spurious  Ameri- can claims as to the nature of the conflict.