Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians 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.
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 in spite of, 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.
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“We will ban the import of goods from illegal settlements. We will disrupt the supply lines of British finance, British construction and British services for illegal settlements. And when it comes to the attempt to destroy the two-state solution, this party, this movement, this government, says ‘we will not let you succeed’.”
Miliband will pay tribute to those who have campaigned against the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, though his warm words are likely to raise questions about whether the government will review the proscription of Palestine Action. Police arrested a number of demonstrators outside the conference hall on Sunday.
“The bonds of solidarity between the British people and those who yearn for peace in Israel and Palestine are too strong to be broken,” Miliband will say.
“Our decision to act mobilised the international community, country after country. This is how to make change happen in today’s world. Doing what is right and galvanising others to act too.”
Miliband will say in his first speech to the party conference as foreign secretary that cooperation in imposing sanctions will be the beginning of a new bond with “likeminded countries” such as France and Canada, though it is also likely to be interpreted as being more willing to sideline the US.
Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has made an explicit argument for middle powers to do more to build alliances with each other outside traditional structures, and was direct in his desire to forge closer ties with and among European countries in a speech in Brussels earlier this month.
A source close to Miliband said that would be a key theme of his time in office. “Britain’s interests are served by standing up for our values on the world stage. Our ability to build coalitions on big global issues depends on our ability to bring countries with us,” he will say.
“This Israel/Palestine reset is a sign of how we want to do business. We are going to be propositional in bringing countries with us on the issues we really care about.”
