Miliband Defends the Indefensible

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Miliband Defends the Indefensible

David Miliband’s keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference was presented in the media as that given by a "leader in waiting" but his remarks were mainly concerned with the government’s foreign policy and defending its record of interference and warmongering throughout the world.

According to the Foreign Secretary, and in the face of reality and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Labour government has brought "order and stability" to the world by promoting what are referred to as "progressive values" at home and abroad. In this context, Miliband tried to put a positive gloss on the chaos that has been unleashed by Britain’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and even went as far as to suggest that such warmongering, allegedly undertaken with the aim of "exporting democracy", had made Britain and the world a safer place.

This was part of the message of "hope" that the Foreign Secretary claimed to be delivering. Not just that the government would continue to justify past armed intervention around the world but that interference in the affairs of other countries, bullying and threats would continue to be the policy of the government in the future, whether in regard to Zimbabwe, Sudan and Palestine, or in its contention with Iran and Russia. While it would claim that such interference was allegedly based on the "need to defend and advance democracy and human rights abroad". It was, in short, a message full of colonialist logic and the arrogance of the representative of a big power. Miliband declared yet again that the world needs what the government refers to as "our" or sometimes "universal" values, that it to say the values of neo-liberal globalisation and the so-called free market. All this at a time when the economic system on which such values are based is in melt-down and in the throes of its worst crisis for over 60 years and people around the world are looking for an alternative, not just to global capitalism but also to the political arrangements of representative democracy, which defends the interests of the big monopolies and financial institutions.

It was therefore the height of hypocrisy for the Foreign Secretary to speak about equality and narrowing the global gap between rich and poor. The New Labour government, which prided itself for being the government of big business, has evidently failed to do that at home, where the gap between rich and poor has widened and the economy has been further geared to pay the rich under any circumstances. It certainly has no justification for speaking of its alleged concerns for the people of Africa or elsewhere, or the lack of clean water in the world. Indeed previous Labour governments have become notorious for encouraging the privatisation of water and other utilities throughout Africa and in other areas of the world and for championing the interests of the financial institutions and the big monopolies such as BAE Systems.

Far from being a factor for peace and stability in the world, New Labour has been a source of war and increasing instability and chaos. Miliband may speak about the need for a modern UN and for adherence to global rules but New Labour governments have flouted international law and ignored or manipulated the UN on the basis that might is right and that it is Anglo-American imperialism that will decide what happens in the world.

Rather than making any contribution to ending global inequality, New Labour have championed neo-liberal globalisation at home and abroad and thereby created the conditions for the current crisis.

In these circumstances, the workers must draw the appropriate conclusions and totally reject the values promoted by New Labour. What is required is to find ways to develop the alternative political and economic system, to end warmongering and elect an anti-war government, for the people to empower themselves and become the decision-makers.