Foreign secretary will tell party’s conference ‘we are not here to accept the status quo but to change it’
Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians that they were right that Labour’s approach had not been enough, saying he was heeding the calls of millions of people by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements.
The foreign secretary will tell the Labour Party conference that the government will take more explicitly progressive foreign policy positions under Andy Burnham, and that the UK will be a leader among like-minded countries in a new age of diplomacy.
Australia v Brazil: men’s international football friendly – live
He will say there is a “fundamental and wider lesson from Israel and Palestine about how we have changed our approach as a party”, saying Labour will succeed “because of, not despite, our progressive values”.
He will talk of the start of a new and more muscular foreign policy. “We are not here to accept the status quo but to change it at home and abroad,” he will say.
The party’s conference hall was often the scene of fierce opposition to Keir Starmer’s stance on Israel and Palestine in Labour’s final year of opposition and early in government.
Since becoming foreign secretary, Miliband has announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements against a backdrop of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, which has resulted in 12 countries – including France and Canada – announcing they would also impose sanctions.
The Guardian understands Miliband will say in his speech that the sanctions marked a definitive change in how Labour will approach the situation in the Middle East.
“I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people: we hear you, you were right,” he will say.
“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.
Reference Link:- https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/28/ed-miliband-labour-former-stance-palestine-fell-short