FORMER BRITISH foreign secretary David Miliband has bowed out of frontline politics, saying that he feared there would be “perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts” to create divisions between him and his brother Ed, the newly elected Labour leader, if he stayed in the party’s shadow cabinet. He insisted that he would remain as an MP.
The decision was greeted with relief within Labour last night, including by some of those who had urged him to run for a place in the shadow cabinet since his defeat on Saturday.
Saying that Labour would have been stronger if he had stayed, his brother said: “While it would obviously have been fantastic to have him serving in my shadow cabinet, I think he has made a thoughtful and gracious decision.”
Former cabinet minister Margaret Beckett said: “Well, I think if you’d asked me two or three days ago I would have said I thought David should have stayed and stay in shadow cabinet. I had begun to change my mind.
“I think a lot of us have come round to the idea this is the right thing to do. We realise that people will use it against Ed.”
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who had strongly supported Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign from the beginning, said David had been right to delay making a decision about his future until yesterday, despite private complaints about this from others within the party.
“If he’d made this decision on Monday, the title of flouncer would have been attached to him,” he said.
In a letter to his Labour constituency organisation, David Miliband said: “First, this is now Ed’s party to lead and he needs to be able to do so as free as possible from distraction.
“Any new leader needs time and space to set his or her own direction, priorities and policies. I believe this will be harder if there is constant comparison with my comments and position as a member of the shadow cabinet.
“This is because of the simple fact that Ed is my brother who has just defeated me for the leadership.
“I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where there is none and splits where they don’t exist, all to the detriment of the party’s cause. Ed needs a free hand but also an open field,” he said.
David Miliband’s step back leaves 49 Labour MPs bidding for 19 places in the shadow cabinet. Nominations closed at 5pm yesterday, but results will not be known for a fortnight.
Allies of Ed Miliband, including London MP Sadiq Khan, are expected to come through easily, and he has also given strong signals that he wants a large number of women in his cabinet.
The departure of David Miliband, former chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling and the former home secretary Jack Straw, none of whom are seeking re-election, has given the new leader the opportunity to push for a fresh image and fresh faces to tie in with the “new generation” image he pushed so strongly in his leader’s address on Tuesday.
