David Miliband tells Labour to be bolder in face of Reform threat
David Miliband has told Labour to be bolder in the face of a growing threat from Reform UK.
The former foreign secretary said Sir Keir Starmer must take an 'insurgent' approach to running Britain, and that he could no longer defend the status quo.
It is the first significant intervention by Mr Miliband – who moved to New York after quitting Parliament in 2013 – since Labour returned to power last summer.
Reform won overall control of 10 councils at the local elections earlier this month, and many of its gains came at the expense of Sir Keir's party.
The Prime Minister has since said he expects Reform to be the main challenger at the next general election, while Nigel Farage, the party's leader, has said he intends to target dozens of seats in Labour's traditional industrial heartlands.
In the foreword to a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Mr Miliband emphasised 'the need for both conservation and change'.
He said: 'Progressives need to shift from defence to offence, from reactive to proactive, from apology to confidence.
'The Labour Government in the UK has the opportunity to show how this can be done. It wants to be an 'insurgent' Government: to show itself to be a disruptor, not defender, of the status quo.
'The challenge it faces is defining and prosecuting an alternative. Their task is made harder because the progressive engine of ideas seems to have run out of steam. When parties don't have new ideas, they reach back for old ones, or imitate others.'
'Challenge is adding grievances'
Mr Miliband, the brother of Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, added that Labour could not simply 'copy' Reform as this would merely broaden Mr Farage's appeal.
He continued: 'The challenge is to address the changes and grievances they speak to, but with progressive ideas and solutions.'
Mr Miliband concluded by calling for 'a new Left for a new age', urging a distinctive programme of policy reforms in the decade to come.
He ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 after the party lost power at that year's general election, but was defeated by his brother in a bruising contest.
After departing frontline politics, Mr Miliband has spent more than a decade as the president of the International Rescue Committee, the humanitarian aid group.
His remarks are the latest in a series of interventions by high-profile Labour grandees in recent weeks, urging Sir Keir to adjust his approach.
Sir Tony Blair, the last Labour leader before Sir Keir to win a general election, appeared to attack his net zero objectives as 'doomed to fail' in an extraordinary report.
Sir Tony subsequently insisted he was fully supportive of the PM's agenda, calling it 'the right one', but the intervention nevertheless opened up a debate in the party about its approach to the environment.
'Electorally toxic'
Lord Blunkett, a former home secretary under Sir Tony, later warned in an article for The Telegraph that net zero risked becoming 'electorally toxic'.
Gordon Brown, Sir Tony's successor in Downing Street, has sounded the alarm over Sir Keir's planned welfare cuts while also arguing for the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.
The Government has sought to address the concerns of Reform supporters and the issues raised by its policy agenda in the weeks after the local elections.
Sir Keir and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced a crackdown on immigration aimed at 'significantly' reducing numbers.
Almost £5 billion of welfare cuts have also been drawn up despite a significant backbench rebellion, while Sir Keir has also vowed to go 'further and faster' in using his landslide to demonstrate tangible change.
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