EXCLUSIVE: Ed Miliband is a “puppet master” manipulating the “weak” Prime Minister behind the scenes of Number 10, it has been suggested.
Ed Miliband is a “puppet master” manipulating “weak” Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a Conservative MP has suggested. Esther McVey said there has been a “remarkable and significant shift in power” behind the scenes at Number 10 since Mr Burnham became leader in July.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has become “the power behind the throne”, pulling the strings of the former Manchester mayor, she told the Daily Expresso podcast. It comes after Mr Miliband announced sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements in a major shift of the Labour Government’s approach to Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Israeli administration.
Ms McVey said: “Andy Burnham is the Prime Minister, but the person who is the puppet master pulling his strings is Ed Miliband. He can’t be Prime Minister. He had his go. It didn’t work well for him.”
Ed Miliband is ‘manipulating’ Labour policy from behind the scenes, Ms McVey said (Image: Getty)
“So, he’s looking at being the power behind the throne, under the radar and manipulating things,” she added. “Burnham is weak.”
The MP for Tatton said the foreign secretary’s announcement of the policy shift in the Commons, instead of Mr Burnham, was a major sign “the cabinet has shifted behind Ed Miliband”.
She warned that it betrayed a wider “dominance of socialism and shift to the left” inside Labour.
Both Israel and the US criticised the UK’s move, which will see a ban on imports from illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and sanctions on individuals and firms providing services to settlers.
Mr Miliband said a “new approach” was necessary because plans for the controversial Israeli E1 development in the West Bank would make a two-state solution “unviable” by “cutting through the heart of Palestine”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch also criticised the decision, writing in the Sun that it was “performative politics, designed to appease Labour MPs and activists regardless of the consequences for Britain”.
But Mr Burnham defended the ban during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, insisting it showed UK “leadership on the world stage”.
He said: “In this difficult and dangerous world, Britain has to stand for something. Britain has to show leadership. Britain has to stand for fairness against injustice.
“Where people are being bullied out of their homes, intimidated, we will always stand with the underdog and take what action we can to support them.”