Miliband Signals Palestine Shift
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Bradford: Ed Miliband’s address to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Monday was significant not simply because the Foreign Secretary used unusually strong language on Palestine, but because the speech presented what amounted to a redefinition of Labour’s foreign-policy identity.
Its central message was that the government led by Prime Minister Andy Burnham intends to move beyond cautious diplomatic criticism towards a more interventionist foreign policy based on international law, targeted sanctions, coalition-building and closer cooperation with European countries.
The Palestine section of the speech was therefore about more than the Middle East. It offered a window into how the new government sees Britain’s role in a changing international order.
Miliband’s most striking acknowledgement came when he addressed those who had been angered by Labour’s previous approach to Gaza and Palestine.
“We hear you. You were right.”
The words were directed at millions of people in Britain and elsewhere who, in Miliband’s words, had been “moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people”. He then declared that, under Andy Burnham’s leadership, the government had “reset our approach”.
That was more than an expression of sympathy. Politically, it amounted to an acknowledgement that the pressure generated by civil society, activists and sections of Labour’s own support base had helped force a reassessment of government policy.
The significance of that admission is heightened by the extent to which Palestine has become a domestic political issue in Britain. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has argued that the issue is now being expressed not only through demonstrations but also through elections, trade unions, workplaces and consumer campaigns. The Guardian reported that pro-Palestinian candidates made significant gains in the 2024 general election and 2026 local elections.
Miliband therefore sought to position the new Labour government as one prepared to listen to political movements outside Westminster. At a Labour conference where Palestine has been one of the most contentious issues, his message to activists was unmistakable: their pressure had been heard and government policy had changed.
The change is not merely rhetorical.
In September, the government announced a significant expansion of measures directed at Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The House of Commons Library records that the government intends to introduce a comprehensive sanctions regime enabling further action against settlements and preventing British companies from assisting settlement construction. It also announced that goods from illegal settlements would be subject to an import ban and that services supporting settlement expansion would be targeted.
Miliband used exceptionally direct language to describe the situation. He referred to “ethnic cleansing” by what he called “settler terrorists”, spoke of evidence of “war crimes” in Gaza and described Israel’s occupation of Palestine as illegal.
These were not simply rhetorical flourishes. They established the moral and legal framework through which the government wants its foreign policy to be understood.
Rather than presenting the conflict solely as a diplomatic disagreement between two parties, Miliband framed particular actions by the Israeli government and settlers through the language of international law, human rights and accountability.
Yet the speech also contained an important distinction.
“Our argument is not with the people of Israel, but with the actions of its government.”
That distinction was strategically significant. It sought to separate criticism of Israeli government policy from hostility towards Israelis as a people, while also placing Labour firmly against antisemitism. Miliband explicitly said that Labour would “always” recognise the threats Israel faces and stand against those seeking its destruction.
He reinforced that point through a deeply personal reference to his family history. Miliband spoke about his parents, both refugees from Nazi persecution, and recalled that his grandmother had been given shelter and sanctuary in Israel after the Second World War. His family history enabled him to argue that support for Palestinian rights and solidarity with Israelis who want peace need not be contradictory.
The position he was constructing was therefore deliberately three-dimensional: support for Palestinian freedom and self-determination, recognition of Israel’s security and opposition to antisemitism, and an insistence that the ultimate political objective must remain a two-state settlement.
Indeed, the most important strategic proposition in the speech was stated plainly:
“The only route to peace is two states, a secure Israel and a secure Palestine, with freedom, dignity and self-determination for both peoples.”
That commitment explains much of the government’s new approach to Israeli settlements.
Miliband argued that Britain would not allow attempts to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution to succeed. The underlying logic is straightforward: if settlement expansion progressively alters the territorial reality of the West Bank, the possibility of establishing a contiguous and viable Palestinian state becomes more difficult.
The government has made essentially that argument in relation to the proposed E1 settlement development. The House of Commons Library records Miliband’s view that the E1 plan would create facts on the ground that could make a two-state solution unviable.
The settlement measures are consequently presented not simply as punishment. They are framed as an attempt to preserve the territorial possibility of a future Palestinian state.
That helps explain another important phrase in Miliband’s speech:
“And we match words with actions.”
For years, criticism of governments over Gaza and the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict has centred on the perceived gap between diplomatic statements and material policy. Miliband attempted to demonstrate that the new government intends to narrow that gap.
The measures include banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, disrupting British financial, construction and service-sector involvement in settlement activity, extending sanctions against individuals associated with settler violence and refusing export licences for arms and other goods that materially contribute to the occupation.
There is, however, an important qualification.
The government’s measures are targeted at settlements and settlement expansion rather than at Israel as a whole. The Commons Library notes that Britain intends to continue supporting trade with Israel, while the government has also rejected a broader boycott approach.
This distinction matters because it reveals the underlying character of the policy. The government is seeking to exert economic and diplomatic pressure over the occupation while maintaining wider relations with Israel.
There is therefore a difference between the moral force of Miliband’s language and the narrower mechanics of the policy.
The rhetoric represents a pronounced political and moral break with the language of the previous government. The measures themselves are more targeted: they seek to alter specific British economic, commercial and military relationships connected to the occupation rather than impose a comprehensive economic rupture with Israel.
Whether those measures will be sufficient to change conditions on the ground is a separate question.
The Palestine argument also formed part of a much broader conception of British power.
Miliband argued that Britain should not attempt to act alone. “Doing what is right and galvanising others to act too,” he said, was the lesson of the government’s experience over Israel and Palestine.
This is an important element of the new foreign-policy doctrine.
Britain, in this conception, cannot necessarily determine international outcomes through unilateral action. Its influence instead comes from building coalitions with countries that share particular objectives.
That approach was already visible in the government’s cooperation with France, Canada and other countries over restrictions relating to Israeli settlements. The House of Commons Library records that France and Canada said they would implement similar measures, alongside other European states that had already taken or committed to related action.
The lesson Miliband draws is therefore broader than Palestine: Britain can exercise influence by bringing other governments together.
This also explains his declaration that Britain’s future lies in a “stronger, deeper partnership with the European Union”.
The statement was not incidental. Miliband explicitly connected Europe with Britain’s approach to climate policy, trade, defence, security and the Middle East. He argued that Britain’s strength comes not simply from acting independently, but from acting “with others”. At the same time, he reaffirmed the importance of the British alliance with the United States and of NATO.
The result is a conception of post-Brexit British foreign policy in which Britain remains outside the European Union but seeks a closer political and diplomatic relationship with European governments.
Palestine provides a particularly clear example of how that model might operate: Britain identifies a policy objective, builds a coalition around it and uses coordinated economic and diplomatic pressure to pursue it.
Yet there is an unresolved tension at the heart of the new approach.
Miliband praised those who had protested and told them: “You were right.” At the same time, the government continues to face fierce criticism from parts of the Palestine solidarity movement over the criminalisation of some forms of activism and over the limits of its measures against Israel.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomed the government’s shift on settlements but argued that it fell well short of the comprehensive sanctions and arms restrictions demanded by the movement. Its incoming director, Aimee Shalan, described Miliband’s announcement as a consequence of years of campaigning while maintaining that the government had not gone far enough.
This exposes a fundamental tension.
The government is effectively saying: we heard your pressure, and it helped change our policy.
Parts of the movement are responding: if that pressure was legitimate, why are some forms of Palestine solidarity still being restricted or criminalised?
Miliband’s speech was consequently addressed to several audiences simultaneously.
It was directed at Labour members and activists who wanted a sharper break with the previous government’s position. It was directed at British voters concerned about Gaza and Palestinian rights. It was directed at Israel, whose settlement policy is now facing more direct British economic and diplomatic consequences. It was directed at European governments, whom Britain wants to bring into closer cooperation. And it was also directed at Washington, where the British government continues to regard its transatlantic relationship as essential.
Above all, however, the speech sought to redefine what Labour believes British power should be used for.
Miliband presented a foreign policy rooted in international law, human rights, humanitarianism and multilateral action, but coupled with a willingness to use economic and diplomatic instruments when the government believes those principles are being violated.
His Palestine policy is therefore not simply a change of language. It is an attempt to demonstrate a new governing philosophy: Britain should defend its values through concrete action, build coalitions with other countries and use its influence to prevent the further erosion of the possibility of a two-state settlement.
Whether that approach ultimately changes the realities in Gaza and the West Bank remains uncertain. But the political significance of Miliband’s speech is already clear.
For the first time in a Labour conference speech under the new government, the Foreign Secretary explicitly acknowledged the anger of those who believed Labour had previously failed Palestinians, declared that their criticism had been heard, and linked that acknowledgement to a new programme of sanctions and international cooperation.
The most consequential words may therefore not have been the condemnation of settlements or even the commitment to a two-state solution.
They were the words with which he addressed the people who had spent years demanding that Labour change course:
“We hear you. You were right.”
That was both an admission about the past and a declaration of intent about the future.
