Britain can lead in standing up for what’s proper in harmful world, says Ed Miliband

EXCLUSIVE: Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said Britain had a responsibility to call out atrocities as he accused Russia of committing war crimes on his first visit to Ukraine

Britain can be a leader in standing up for what is right in a dangerous world, the Foreign Secretary has said.

Ed Miliband said the UK can be a force for change in Ukraine, in Palestine and across the world as he gets to grips with a daunting in-tray as the country’s top diplomat.

Mr Miliband has used his first months in the Foreign Office to harden the UK’s stance on Israel’s actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. On a trip to Ukraine this week, he accused Vladimir Putin of committing “war crimes” as he visited a bombed out apartment block in Pryluky where 22 people, including five children, were killed on October 6.

In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, he said Britain had a responsibility to call out atrocities. Asked if Andy Burnham’s government was taking a different approach to foreign policy, he said: “It’s my view that you need to say it like it is as much as you possibly can… This is definitely a war of aggression that is killing indiscriminately a lot of civilians.

“And that is evidence of war crimes in my view. Obviously courts have to make those determinations but I think we should be honest about what we see.”

The experience of his parents, who were Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis, was on his mind as he travelled to Kyiv for the first time this week.

His dad Ralph was born in Belgium to Polish parents and fled to Britain in 1940 and later served in the Royal Navy. His mum Marion, who died earlier this year, escaped the Czestochowa Ghetto and went into hiding in Warsaw before later moving to England.

“When we arrived in Poland I really felt it at the train station,” he said. “They were victims of war in Europe, and today I met lots of victims of war in Europe, of Russian aggression.”

His parents experiences escaping the Holocaust gave them what he describes as “survivors’ responsibility” – rather than survivors’ guilt – to teach the next generation that they have a responsibility to make the world a better place.

“I think its taken me 56 years of my life to get to this description of them, I’ve never quite been able to articulate it in that way,” he said. “But I think that’s what they felt. They channelled their tragedy into that.”

Mr Miliband went on: “The reason I think that relates to your readers is the world is a scary place, daunting and scary, but there are lots of people and countries who want to fight for the right thing.

“And when the world has been a scary place in the past, it’s the coming together of those people who want to do the right thing that has made the difference.

“We have influence and power to do that. If you think about Israel-Palestine or indeed Ukraine, you see a lot of countries responding and that’s quite a hopeful sign.”

Mr Miliband spoke to the Sunday Mirror on the night train speeding out of Kyiv after his first visit to the war-torn country. Russian bombardment of the capital has intensified, with drone and missile strikes happening in day and night.

The Foreign Secretary arrived at the station in Kyiv as an air raid alert sounded and had to seek cover as drones struck the city’s air defences. Later in the day, his TV interview was interrupted by another loud warning signal.

But the human cost of war was brought home by his meetings with ordinary Ukrainians, from veterans recovering in hospital to those injured in a recent blast. Standing in the rubble of a missile blast in Pryluky with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Miliband comforted a 12-year-old boy who told him he was living in fear.

The Foreign Secretary said: “He has such a spirit in his eyes. He and maybe his brother, the smaller kid by him. That’s the price of war, that’s what I felt about it.

“The price of war is the terrible casualties, the people who lose their lives, the veterans. And it’s also that kid, who’s scared. Kids shouldn’t be scared and they are scared because of what Putin’s doing. I really carry him with me to be honest.”

He went on: “When I see the little kids, like the little kid I met, I think about my Mum. My Dad came to Britain but my Mum, she was a little kid caught up in a war.

“She was a little kid who was frankly traumatised by war. And we are going to have too many kids in Ukraine traumatised by war.”

Mr Miliband refused to bow to pessimism about stalled peace talks as Ukraine heads into its fifth winter at war. He said: “Putin thought he would roll over Ukraine in a matter of weeks or maybe months.

“We are more than four years on and he is not winning, and I think if he’s not winning he’s losing, because this is a war he thought he could win easily.

“Despite the suffering, the people we met are so determined, and President Zelensky is so determined. We have really got to stand to shoulder to shoulder with them.”

Mr Miliband acknowledged that Keir Starmer’s government – where he served as Energy Secretary – had got it wrong on Gaza.

One of his first big acts in office was to slap sanctions on trade with illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, which comes as part of a wider reset by Mr Burnham who apologised for Labour’s initial handling of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The sanctions triggered a backlash, and fury from the Israeli Government. This week the UK rebranded its consulate in East Jerusalem as a “mission” as diplomatic tensions deepened.

Asked if Starmer’s government had got it wrong, he said: “The recognition of Palestine was a historic step but I think we were too reticent to call out what the Israeli government was doing and too cautious.

“I think that as a result, your readers and others thought there was a real terrible injustice going on here and you’re not calling it out.

“I really pay tribute to my predecessors Yvette [Cooper] and David [Lammy] here as they were really wanting to do the right thing. But somehow at the top of government we didn’t take it to where we needed to get to.

“I think Andy has signalled a big change in approach and the support I’ve had from him on this reset has been really important.”