It often takes an outsider to see us most clearly. When I had breakfast with the ambassador of an EU country last week he asked me: ‘What is the Burnham government’s foreign policy? Because it seems to me there is only domestic policy conducted on the international stage.’

Keir Starmer and David Lammy’s approach was ‘progressive realism’. Under New Labour, Robin Cook advanced an ‘ethical foreign policy’. Andy Burnham, however, appears to have little interest, leaving the details to Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. As a Labour peer notes: ‘We have Andy’s vibes and Ed’s conscience.’

But on Brexit, the Middle East and Ukraine, the Prime Minister has begun to discover the wisdom of the observation, often attributed to Leon Trotsky, that ‘you may not be interested in foreign policy, but foreign policy is interested in you’.

Miliband’s critics see a man with an almost messianic craving for the approval of progressive voters

Miliband’s critics see a man with an almost messianic craving for the approval of progressive voters

Having reopened the Brexit debate, Burnham implied he’s had an intelligence briefing about Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum in an apparent attempt to delegitimise the result. The move backfired when Sir Ken McCallum, the director–general of MI5, suggested such claims would ‘play into our adversaries’ hands’.

The German government and its leader Friedrich Merz privately signalled displeasure at Miliband’s decision to sanction Israeli products from the West Bank, in what was seen as an attempt to curry favour with voters in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election and Labour members at party conference. ‘This all started because Burnham doesn’t give a flying fuck about foreign policy,’ says a security source. ‘Burnham didn’t realise that basically everybody… was going to ask him, “What the fuck are you doing?”’

As I reported last month, the sanctions were opposed both by Jonathan Powell, the National Security Adviser, and by Simon Walters, the British ambassador in Tel Aviv, who advised that nothing should be done before the Israeli election on 27 October. It can now be revealed that Foreign Office officials warned in a memo that the policy will be very difficult to enact, since there is no legal distinction in Israel between products and services from Israel proper and the Palestinian territories. A source familiar with the warning says: ‘What are we going to do? Phone up the Israelis and ask them which companies to sanction? In effect, we are sanctioning the whole of Israel.’

This, in turn, has materially damaged relations with the US, since banks and other companies to be sanctioned are part-owned by Americans. Insiders say British insurance companies will also be hit. ‘Several Israeli banks have American stakeholders,’ says a London-based diplomat. ‘You will effectively be sanctioning American citizens.’

Labour MPs congratulated themselves that Miliband’s move........

© The Spectator