Ed Miliband’s Israeli settlement sanctions were announced with maximum theatricality.
Government backbenchers crowded onto their benches and jumped up, hundreds, almost as one, with a massive ‘lump’ of shoe leather on the Commons carpet, hoping to attract the attention of the Deputy Speaker.
When the parliamentary benches are so full, the weight of the bodies creates political power. Work MPs were enthusiastic about this announcement.
They thought it would help them hold their seats. Could it even blunt the threat from the Greens? Gaza independents at the Holborn by-election next month?
Numerous ministers were in the parade: Yvette Kuiper, Wes StraatingLouise Haigh and more. Andy Burnham arrived late. He hung around the Speaker’s chair for a while, jumping from foot to foot.
Our new Prime Minister has little natural presence. He squeezed apologetically next to Mr Miliband and quickly became almost invisible. All eyes were on Miliband.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs has given everything. Ministerial statements, especially on such delicate issues, are normally quite emotionless. Ed Mil’ treated the event as a speech at a party conference.
He added personal references. He blinked and moved his limbs and usually gave him the full noodle. His head shook back and forth as he sped up to the climax of his comments. The last few minutes weren’t far from bizarre. Words flowed in a stream. His mouth was pulled into different angles as he accentuated and expressed emotions.
Ed Miliband began by saying he was “a proud British Jew” and described childhood memories of visiting his grandmother in Tel Aviv
By the end, Andy Burnham was just a spectator. Cake decoration. The forgotten passenger on the bus next to Rosa Parks.
Mr Miliband began by saying he was “a proud British Jew” and described childhood memories of visiting his grandmother in Tel Aviv.
Some of the happiest days of his youth were spent picking oranges on the kibbutz where his cousins lived. And yet the recent actions in the illegal settlements – he used the term “ethnic cleansing” – had left him with a sense of shame. Hence the decision to take a ‘new approach’ to British foreign policy towards Israel.
When he spoke affectionately about Israel, his pace slowed and he began to whisper. The more accusatory passages were delivered with greater speed and more animation. When he sat down after that fiery finish, the Labor benches erupted with joy.
The statement had lasted 21 minutes, which was more than twice as long as usual for such cases.
Beforehand, Mr Miliband became irritated when he tried to get agreement from Vice-President Nusrat Ghani to allow him to take up so much time. His two eyeballs dug into the top of his nose. His fingers trembled during the speech. He was extremely excited by this statement. Tom Tugendhat, the new shadow foreign secretary, flagged some elegant disagreements. He suggested there was an element of ‘performative politics’ in all this and wondered what would happen if the Palestinian embassy were manned by Hamas terrorists.
The people most likely to suffer from Miliband’s sanctions, he feared, would be the “innocent Palestinians and Israelis.”
There were remarkably few Conservatives present and only a few – Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) and Jack Rankin (Windsor) – attacked Mr Miliband’s statement with much gusto. After the pro-Argentine noise in Jerusalem in recent days, Israel’s traditional Tory friends may have decided to postpone this issue.
On the Labor side, Damien Egan (Bristol NE) and Preet Gill (Edgbaston) expressed doubts about the policy change. Otherwise it was virtually one-way traffic: pro-Palestine, pro-Miliband.
“This is about our psychology as a country,” Mr. Miliband asserted, leaning on the mailbox and resting his rectangular head on one palm.
But then Tulip Siddiq (Lab, Hampstead & Highgate) mentioned her late constituent, Mr Miliband’s mother.
“She would have been proud of him,” Ms Siddiq said. And it struck me that perhaps this was less about the psychology of our country than about the psychology of an emotional son, brother and failed former Labor leader who now wants to put things right, if not in the West Bank, then in his own convoluted constitution.
