Miliband speaks of a Middle East policy shift - so it's time to pick a side

Submitted by Tom Blackburn on Tue, 09/29/2026 - 16:09 The UK government cannot credibly tell Palestinians and their supporters that they were right about Gaza, while simultaneously enabling Israeli atrocities

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks at the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, on 28 September 2026 (Oli Scarff/AFP) Off

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s words, in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Monday, were striking.

Gaza is a “stain on the conscience of the world”, he said, adding that those who protested at the Labour government’s support for Israel “were right”.

Clearly, this is a significant rhetorical departure from the Starmer era, when Labour had to be dragged kicking and screaming into making even the most tepid criticisms of Israel.

In his address to conference delegates, Miliband took aim at “ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists” in the occupied West Bank, along with “war crimes” in Gaza and Israel’s “illegal occupation of Palestine”. He vowed to “match words with actions”.

This last point is crucial: talk is cheap. What really matters is how far this new language reflects any real corresponding policy shift.

Miliband’s recent announcement of sanctions on West Bank settlements was a start, but it did not fundamentally alter the UK’s relationship with Israel; UK diplomats assured the White House that the sanctions were primarily “symbolic”.

By the same token, Miliband’s speech, for all its headline-grabbing rhetoric, largely avoided confronting the structures and alliances that make Britain complicit in Israeli genocide and settler-colonialism.

Marching in lockstep

“A stain on the conscience of the world.” This is the phrase that garnered the most attention, and understandably so. Few, beyond the ranks of the most blinkered Zionist fanatics, would disagree that the systematic mass extermination of Palestinians in Gaza must be described in such terms.

Nevertheless, it is striking that Miliband and the government continue to stop short of calling it what it is: genocide.

Instead, Miliband talked about “the suffering the Netanyahu government has inflicted” on the people of Gaza, thereby personalising responsibility and pinning it on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, as if the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public - beyond a small and marginal fringe - hasn’t marched in lockstep behind him, supporting the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

While Israel's crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank receive rightful (if belated) condemnation, another major theatre of Israeli aggression disappears from view

The deeper political, cultural and social pathologies of Israeli society once again go unaddressed.

Miliband’s remarks were presented as a major statement of principle about the Middle East - the Labour government supposedly rediscovering its “Labour values”, although they have always been a moveable feast - yet Lebanon went without a mention.

This is despite Israel doing to southern Lebanon much of what it has also done to Gaza: large-scale ethnic cleansing and killing, and the demolition of entire villages.

This is a remarkable omission, given the destruction and displacement caused by Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. Thousands of Lebanese people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands displaced; towns such as Kfar Kila have been destroyed, with residents forbidden to return to areas lying within the “buffer zone” imposed by Israel.

So, while Israel’s crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank receive rightful (if belated) condemnation, another major theatre of Israeli aggression - and its accompanying atrocities - disappears from view. This is important, because a serious critique of Israel’s actions in the region cannot treat Gaza or the West Bank in isolation from its broader expansionist designs.

Isolating Iran

This brings us to Iran, which was also a target of criticism in Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference.

He said Britain would work to “prevent a nuclear Iran through economic sanctions”, act against Iranian “proxies”, and “continue to isolate Iran so that they reopen the Strait of Hormuz” - as if the latter were an act of God, and not a foreseeable consequence of the US decision to wage war on the country.

The humanitarian consequences of the sanctions imposed on Iran must be reiterated here: severe disruptions to civilian life, including shortages of basic supplies and vital medicines, along with dramatic and unpredictable price increases. While medicines are supposed to be formally exempt from many sanctions, financial restrictions and constraints on shipping can make it extremely difficult to obtain them in practice.

Furthermore, Miliband must surely be aware that the elimination of Iran as a serious geopolitical rival, and as a roadblock to near-complete US-Israeli domination of the Middle East, is a key strategic goal of the Zionist regime.

This goes beyond mere regime change and the replacement of the Islamic Republic with a new government friendlier to the West. A weakened, fragmented and destabilised Iran, plunged into ongoing turmoil and internal conflict, would be incapable of obstructing US and Israeli regional hegemony.

The destruction of Iran as a functioning power would thus be an enormous strategic prize for Israel and the US.

There are obvious regional precedents. Iraq was invaded, occupied and effectively destroyed as a regional power; Libya was subjected to Nato bombing, helping to bring about the state’s collapse; and Syria was left shattered by more than a decade of civil war and imperialist subterfuge. Today, none are in any real position to resist the US and Israel’s designs for the region.

This is the context in which the US-Israeli war on Iran needs to be understood. If the Iranian state can be wrecked, its military capabilities smashed, its economy crippled and internal fault lines magnified, the most formidable rival to Tel Aviv and Washington will be removed - enabling Israel to make broader advances, and facilitating even more land grabs.

Yet Miliband implicitly accepts the US and Israel’s strategic premises, casting them as neutral matters of global security and trade, even as he disavows Netanyahu’s actions in Palestine.

Matching words with actions

During the same conference in which Miliband told Palestine solidarity activists that they “were right”, more than 50 people were arrested for holding placards in support of Palestine Action, including 94-year-old human rights barrister Margaret Owen.

More than 3,600 people in total have now been arrested for supporting Palestine Action, proscribed as a terrorist group by Starmer’s government in July 2025; almost half of all terrorism arrests in Britain since 9/11 have been made over the last year, since the ban came into force.

Nobody, not even government ministers, could genuinely believe that the thousands of people arrested for holding such placards can be considered terrorists, nor that Palestine Action itself constitutes a terrorist organisation. Miliband has now admitted as much, saying during the conference that mass arrests were never intended, but would not commit to lifting the ban before a Supreme Court appeal in November.

Britain must do more to align Israel policy with international law Read More »

Criminal damage was already a criminal offence, of course. But the decision to proscribe Palestine Action, and to criminalise expressions of support for it, was intended to have a chilling effect on criticisms of Israel, and to further intimidate its opponents. It was, and remains, a travesty.

In addition, Labour’s Conference Arrangements Committee blocked an emergency motion brought by party delegates that called for Palantir’s £330 million ($437m) NHS contract to be cancelled, explicitly citing the US tech company’s role in enabling the Gaza genocide.

Military flights to Israel, meanwhile, continue under Prime Minister Andy Burnham. As journalist Matt Kennard has reported, another A400M transport plane flew from RAF Akrotiri to Israel’s Nevatim airbase just last week.

What would it mean for Miliband to “match words with actions” on Palestine? To offer a few suggestions: the de-proscription of Palestine Action, cutting off UK arms and military exports to Israel, and imposing economic sanctions on Israel as a whole, rather than limiting such action to West Bank settlements.

The government cannot credibly tell Palestinians and their supporters that they were right, while simultaneously maintaining the relationships that allow Israel to continue committing atrocities with effective impunity. It has to pick a side.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

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