Brexit-bashing David Miliband can't stand that the UK is thriving outside the EU, says Alp Mehmet

His argument is replete with jargon and contradictions. Lots of words but little said.

Don't get me wrong, David Miliband was my boss for a year or so when he was foreign secretary before I left the Diplomatic Service. I rather liked him on a personal level (although he always came over as something of a clever sixth former with still much to learn about the world) But 15 to 16 years on and he hasn’t changed much, it seems.

The nub of the problem was the delusional thinking behind the Brexit vote, “that there is a future where our destiny depends only on our own decisions rather than on our ability to engage, incentivise, bargain with and deter others.”

Throughout his op-ed in the Observer, he refers to the EU as if it were a unitary state – a member of the G20, helping Ukraine with arms, taking in six million refugees, a provider of aid and “a regulatory superpower in trade, climate and digital areas.” Despite the UK doing well on Ukraine, he thinks the EU did even better. As for our relations within Nato, they are strong, but we had better watch out because Ukraine has brought the EU closer to Nato.

Jargon? What about his claim: “The danger for British policy makers was exemplified by the Johnson government with its wishful thinking about our power and position in a world dominated by increasing global risks and muscular, transactional, adroit – sometimes predatory – nations and non-state actors, all growing in influence by the weakening of the multilateral system.” No idea.

We are now one of the “middle powers” because our wealth, military assets and reputation have declined relative to others in the past decade. We have gone from being a second-tier state to a middle-ranking one.

The countries in this category he mentions are: Saudi Arabia, whose finances we don’t have; France, with its “EU anchor”; Turkey, with her “regional activism and risk-appetite; and of course, India and Indonesia, with their demographic strength.

He concedes we still have global reach and global power and retain hard and soft power. We are also one of the richer countries and are “privileged” - whatever that is meant to mean - to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. I dare say he would prefer the EU to be there in place of the UK and France. For, we don’t “understand the realities of our power in today’s world. He omits our nuclear arsenal”.

What to make of this paean to the EU, and Davos-inspired, globalist denigration of the country that he represented as Foreign Secretary and aspired to govern as leader of the Labour Party?

In his efforts to show how Brexit has damaged the status of Britain I believe David Miliband has achieved the opposite. We have our problems for sure, but has he glanced at what is going on in the EU? How are member states’ economies doing, what’s happening on the streets, pretty much throughout the EU, and how the EU is handling immigration?

Within the sort of EU that Mr Miliband outlines, far from having an enhanced status, Britain would have no status at all, it would be subsumed by Brussels. Wasn’t that part of the reason for our leaving?

Here’s another, and final thought. Could this have been a bit of kite-flying from Mr M, perhaps in cahoots with Sir K and Mr Lammy, whose love for the EU is unbounded? A sign of things to come from a Starmer administration?

In any case, it would surprise me if David Miliband is not advising Mr Lammy and Sir Keir.