David Miliband blasts brother Ed and says HE is to blame for the slaughter in Syria
Former MP has slammed Ed Miliband for helping to block military action in Syria in 2013
DAVID Miliband blasted brother Ed yesterday over his role in blocking military action which could have halted the carnage in Syria.
The former Foreign Secretary said Britain’s refusal to intervene was a “moral, political and practical failure of monumental proportions”.
And he warned it could spell serious trouble, not just for the Middle East, but the whole world.
Mr Miliband claimed a 2013 Commons vote that stopped David Cameron sending troops to stop Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad using chemical weapons had created a “vacuum” in western leadership.
Ed – then Labour leader – boasted that MPs had “spoken for the people of Britain”.
But yesterday his big bro said failure to act had indirectly led to the destruction of a country with the loss of tens of thousands of lives.
In a thinly-veiled swipe at Ed, who pipped him in the 2010 Labour leadership race, Dave declared: “It’s certainly not just a moral failure but a practical and political collective failure of monumental proportions.
“Remember, the litany is not just 500,000 dead, 1.9 million people injured, it’s the neighbouring states, with four million refugees, creaking under the strain and it’s a million refugees in Europe.”
The region has now become a “centre of terrorist planning”, he said, with “significant long-term consequences.”
He added: “If you know anything about the Middle East, it’s that what starts in the Middle East does not stop in the Middle East and that’s certainly true in this case.”
Mr Miliband moved to New York after Ed stabbed him in the back to snatch the Labour crown off his head in 2010 and is now president of US charity the International Rescue Committee.
He said his brother’s success in halting military action by just 13 votes made a “quite important” contribution to the events which followed.
Ed said at the time: “People are deeply concerned about the chemical weapons attacks in Syria but they want us to learn the lessons of Iraq. They don’t want to rush to war.”
But David told BBC Radio 4: “It sewed a degree of confusion that I think undoubtedly contributed to the sense of vacuum.
“The red line over chemical weapons needed to mean something to uphold international norms never mind American credibility.”