Optimism key word of Ed Miliband

New Labour is rubbish and deserves to be buried sooner rather than later. It is now the Labour of Optimism. That is the message of the new leader of the British Labour Party Ed Miliband, yes the younger of the political siblings who contested for the Labour leadership earlier this week, and won, beating his much favoured and arrogant elder brother, David, narrowly but certainly.

In electing Ed Miliband as its leader, even by a wafer thin majority, Labour was keen to end the memories of how Tony Blair had been widely and correctly accepted as the pet poodle of US President George W Bush wagging its tail as Bush dragged both the US and Britain into the unjust invasion of Iraq.

New Labour leader

What is significant for Sri Lanka in the new changes in Labour is the ouster of David Miliband, the Shadow Foreign Secretary until yesterday. Sulking at the defeat by his younger brother, he has decided to keep away from frontline politics; which means spending the rest of his time in the present Parliament as a backbencher.

Although he had abundant praise for his younger brother as the new Labour leader, and said he was proud of his success, it did not take long for David Miliband to display his ungracious self. Just a day after his abundant praise for his brother, he was clearly angered by Ed Miliband’s clear and emphatic condemnation of the decision to take the UK into the invasion of Iraq. He said it was wrong to have taken Britain to a war, when there was inadequate understanding with allies and more seriously by undermining the authority of the United Nations.

A red-faced and cross David Miliband asked his Labour colleague Harriet Harman, seated next to him, why she was applauding Ed Miliband’s condemnation of the Iraq invasion, after having voted for it herself. Her reply was that Ed was the new leader and deserved all support. It did not take long for David Miliband, the almost new leader of Labour, to leave the Conference in Manchester and rush back to his home in London.

Shadow Cabinet

The next day he announced the decision not to serve in the Shadow Cabinet of Ed Miliband, apparently to give his brother more space to work in. This must have been relief to the younger brother, and new leader, who recalled in his address about the comparative left wing tendencies of both. Referring to him being taunted as Red-Ed by the media and David’s campaign for the support he got from the Trade Unions, Ed Miliband described how, when as children he had taken David’s football, the elder brother had nationalized his entire train set.

Colonial masters

It was not surprising that some supporters of David Miliband, such as former Chancellor Alistair Darling, said it was time that Labour thought of revising the electoral system for the party leadership. Such thinking is not uncommon among those who are unable to accept the reality of defeat, whatever claims they may make to be the best of democrats.

For Sri Lanka, there can be much hope for optimism more in the defeat of David than in the election of Ed. It was David Miliband alone, in his speech to the Labour Conference as Shadow Foreign Secretary, who made an adverse reference to Sri Lanka. Lumping Sri Lanka together with Myanmar, he said the people of Myanmar and Sri Lanka, who are not being cared for by their governments and struggling for human rights, were eagerly looking for a Labour Government in the UK.

I will not comment on how much the people of Myanmar hanker after a Labour Government in the land of its former colonial masters. However, one can be unequivocal in stating that David Miliband, is talking bunkum and trying to fool members of the Labour Patry, and the British public too, by making them believe that Sri Lankans are eagerly looking for Labour to rule Britain again.

Yes, we do recall that independence came to us under the historic Labour Government of Clement Atlee. We also know of the great work that Labour has done for British Society, especially in establishing the Welfare State, from which we have learnt and absorbed much. But, the Sri Lankans certainly are not enamoured of the policies so New Labour, of which David Miliband was very much a part, especially in dealing with Sri Lanka vis-a-vis the battle we waged to defeat terrorism in this country.

Internal affairs

The efforts that David Miliband made to get a ceasefire in the dying days of the LTTE’s battle for survival, and to carry on their battle another day, is not too distant from the minds of Sri Lankans. It was this effort on behalf of the most ruthless terrorists of the world, by a Foreign Secretary of an avowed democratic country that had also banned the LTTE, that compelled President Mahinda Rajapaksa to remind David Miliband that Sri Lanka was not a colony of the British anymore and that we do not need such interference in our own internal affairs.

David Miliband has been the focus of interest of the pro-LTTE Tamil expatriate community in the UK, who pose of as the Tamil Diaspora, a non-existent group that stands in contradiction to the meaning of a Diaspora. In addition, David Miliband made every effort to please the narrow interests of this group that still supports the separatist terror of the LTTE, under a cloak of supporting human rights in Sri Lanka. He wooed them and cajoled them for his narrow political ends. Some of them may have helped him win his seat in the Commons, when Labour lost more than 200 seats in the last General Election. He was in the forefront of Tamils for Labour and various other sectarian organizations that were pushing the agenda of the defeated LTTE, in its incarnation as a Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam. His campaign for the Labour leadership saw him talk to these groups behind closed doors. However, not even their support could win the Labour leadership for him.

It is now a different Labour that we must look at and deal with. It is Labour led by Ed Miliband, who is presenting Labour as the Party of Optimism. He made an interesting comment that the abandoning of New Labour would not mean going back to Old Labour, but to Real Labour.

A Labour Party of Optimism can have much to do constructively with Sri Lanka, which is the nation of optimism in Asia today. It is a nation that looks to the future with great optimism, in which we share much with Miliband and those who believe in a genuine people-oriented progress in governance.

A combination of optimism in politics and international relations, away from that of narrow political gain, can do much for a better Labour and if they win again for a better Britain too, which no doubt the people of Sri Lanka would admire.