Miliband: Corbyn is ‘midwife to hard Brexit’
Former foreign secretary returns to politics to attack Labour leader and insist the UK take Norway option
DAVID MILIBAND made a return to front line British politics yesterday and attacked Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit.
In a rare intervention and insisting his own views were “born of experience as well as commitment”, the former Labour foreign secretary said he was “baffled” by the Labour leader’s opposition to staying in the single market and warned he risked becoming the “midwife to hard Brexit”.
He appeared alongside Nicky Morgan, a Tory MP and former education secretary, and Sir Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat former deputy prime minister, to make a cross-party appeal for Britain to stay in the European Economic Area.
Mr Miliband’s appearance fuelled speculation that he could be considering a return from New York, where he runs a charity, to lead a new centrist party that would attract moderates from across the political spectrum. But Mr Miliband insisted that his intervention was about “cross-party working” rather than “creating new parties”. However, he added, he was “baffled” by Labour’s position on Brexit.
It comes after the House of Lords successfully amended the Government’s flagship Brexit legislation last week in a bid to secure membership of the EEA.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I am baffled about why the Labour leadership is so worried about supporting the EEA position. I fear the position that they have taken makes Jeremy Corbyn the midwife of a hard Brexit.”
He added: “I think there is a real onus on parliamentarians now, when the House of Lords amendment finally comes back to the House of Commons.
“You have seen many Labour peers who know the value of loyalty talking about the essence of doing the right thing this time and my own view is that peers are ahead of the party leadership when it comes to this EEA issue.”
But Mr Miliband said he was advocating “cross-party working, not for creating new parties”.
EEA membership, known as the “Norway option”, has long been floated as a potential soft landing for the UK.
It came as Erna Solberg, the Norwegian prime minister, insisted that the UK could join the EEA after Brexit. She told the Financial Times: “I think we will cope very well if the Brits come in.”
Mr Miliband said her comments were “significant” as he described membership of the European Economic Area as a “safe harbour” for Britain “that is on the table for every MP and every party leader”.
Meanwhile, Clive Efford, a Labour MP, suggested that Mr Corbyn needed to appoint more “talent” to his shadow cabinet. He highlighted Yvette Cooper, the veteran Labour MP and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee,
‘I am baffled about why the Labour leadership is so worried about supporting the EEA position’
as someone who should be promoted. And Labour MEPS yesterday urged Mr Corbyn to think again on Brexit and back remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
According to insiders, a delegation from Brussels met the Labour leader at the party’s headquarters in London yesterday, where they urged him to adopt a softer approach to Brexit – one that would bind Britain to European Union laws and leave it unable to sign new free trade deals.