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

Miliband speaks of a Middle East policy shift - so it's time to pick a side 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.  (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 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 fa