The news that David Miliband is resigning from the House of Commons to take up an international aid job in America was only minutes old when a Labour MP messaged to say this could be disastrous for Labour’s policy towards the European Union (EU). A few hours later, another Labour MP said something similar. He had been asked by a colleague, in all seriousness, what Miliband’s departure means for Labour’s welfare policy.
These responses are a reminder, not of Miliband’s importance, but of the overexcited and obsessive atmosphere in which the political class too often exists. So let us step back a moment. In my view, there are three larger issues to consider about Miliband’s departure from British politics. In ascending order of public importance they are — personal, generational and political.
The personal dimensions are in some ways unique to the Milibands. True, there have been brothers, sisters and spouses in politics before. The Milibands were not even the first brothers to serve together in a democratic-era cabinet — that accolade belongs to the Stanley brothers, under Neville Chamberlain.
However, the Milibands remain the only brothers to have fought for the leadership of a major political party. Ed, the younger, beat David, the elder, by a narrow margin to become Labour leader in 2010. Even today, that remains a barely credible fratricidal contest, reflecting badly on both. It remains a shared failing that they were unable to sort out their differences in a better way.
What is certain, though, is that it was an all-or-nothing outcome. Ed’s victory was the end of David’s career. Call it soap opera, psychodrama or plain old-fashioned rivalry, but there was no way, given the wound, the media and the differences of viewpoint, that the two brothers could continue to operate in the same way in the same political space after 2010. The leadership election result created a problem to which there was no political solution. Last Wednesday’s announcement is the inevitable upshot.
The last time I spoke to David about his future, a few weeks ago, I asked him about his career trajectory. “I’m still in earth orbit”, he replied, “neither coming into land nor heading off into a new galaxy.” A typically elegant answer, it seemed at the time, but now, the booster rockets have finally been fired.
Some may hope the move to America is only a slingshot around the moon, with an eventual return to the bosom of British politics. It feels more like a one-way mission into deep space to me. But it is better to move on than to spend a whole political lifetime consumed with curdling bitterness and unfulfilled ambition — no names, no pack drill, but you probably guess which Labour politician I have in mind.
Yet, if the legacy of fratricide cannot be ignored, there is also the generational question to consider. David has left politics at 47 after being an MP for a mere 12 years. That is an age at which, until very recently, few senior political careers had even begun.
However, it is hardly exceptional these days. Miliband’s contemporaries — James Purnell and Ruth Kelly — walked away from politics at 40 and 41, respectively. Estelle Morris left at 52. So did Alan Milburn. Britain’s three main party leaders are currently 46 (David Cameron and Nick Clegg) and 43 (Ed). It is by no means unthinkable that they will all leave frontline politics by their early 50s, if not before.
In an ageing society, politicians start and finish younger than ever, with little experience other than politics in-between. This is crazy on several counts. It is all very well saying that they leave in time to fully embrace fulfilling new post-political lives, but there is something very wrong with a political system in which you learn your wisdom after being in charge of government rather than the other way around.
That is not going to be changed any time soon, unfortunately. But it is impossible to look at today’s Labour frontbench and not think that Labour should make every possible effort it can to retain the services of the likes of Alistair Darling, Alan Johnson and Jack Straw on experience grounds alone. The Ed Miliband cabinet after 2015, if there is one, is going to need a lot of wise and weathered heads. With David’s departure, Labour’s wisdom pool has just got significantly smaller.
In the end, though, it is the political impact of David’s departure that matters more than anything else. The temptation in the Westminster world is to say this is a huge event for Labour. The Conservative party and old Labour, united in their longing for Labour to be more leftwing than it actually is, will both try to make that claim. Yet, the reality is less dramatic.
Part of that reality is that, long before he resigned, Miliband had already ceased to matter much in day-to-day, frontline political terms. He has been so careful not to rock the boat, so controlled in his interventions, so respectful of his brother and his party that he long ago ceased to be a significant focus — let alone an alternative leadership focus. The potential to be a big and possibly disruptive player was certainly there, but David’s self-denial, and his cool temperament, ensured this was not the case.
Much more significantly, many of the things for which David stands will simply not go away, however much Labour’s old-time religionists and Pasionarias may wish it otherwise. Labour is not going to lurch into anti-Europeanism or big new welfare spending commitments just because the brainy ex-foreign secretary is heading out of the Commons. It is not going to do these things because it — and this includes Ed — knows it cannot win or govern on that basis.
Supporters of New Labour, who are trapped in Blairite ancestor worship, and enemies of New Labour, for whom the years 1997-2010 are simply years of shame, are both missing the point.
No Labour government is going to be elected, or will be able to govern, without, among other things, some disavowal of the deregulatory economic policy mistakes of the past and a commitment to fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. The sweet spot of modern politics, David Miliband said the other day, is opposition to austerity and support for public service reform. Labour has to be a party of answers rather than anger. The fanatics and the cyber-shouters on the left may not get this, but both of the Milibands do and Labour will stand or fall by the extent to which Ed persuades voters that he can deliver.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
