Red Ed Miliband has wasted no time at Labour conference, gallivanting around and boasting about his pro-Palestine credentials. The Foreign Secretary has scarcely missed an opportunity to remind his adoring fans that it was he who imposed a boycott on the West Bank, he who pushed Sir Keir Starmer to recognise Palestine and he who is delighted by the opening of a new ‘refugee’ route specifically for Gazans to come and live in Britain.
In his conference speech, addressing Sir Keir Starmer’s approach to Gaza, Miliband trumpeted to members: ‘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.’
Poor old Ed. He clearly ignored the endless warnings from anyone blessed with a brain cell that, for the Pally lobby, it will simply never be enough. Short of Britain declaring war on Israel – as some British Pakistani MPs so badly desire – and demanding the dismantling of the world’s only Jewish state, the protesters will never be satisfied.
Red Ed received a rather rude reminder of this while dining at a Pizza Express near the conference hotel. Miliband’s dinner was disrupted by activists from ‘Defend Our Juries’ demanding that he declare the war a genocide and de-proscribe Palestine Action.
The feral protesters pleaded: ‘Please come and talk to us. Come and talk to us now.’ Miliband gestured that he was in the middle of a meal and that perhaps this was not the ideal moment for a chinwag. One activist persisted: ‘I voted for you to be leader of the Labour Party. I believe in you come and talk to us.’
Miliband declined to oblige. For all his efforts to feed the pro-Palestine lobby, it seems even Red Ed cannot satisfy its glutinous appetite.
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