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The ‘Proud Jew’ Pushing Out British Jewry

Jonathan Sacerdoti

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks at the House of Commons in London, Britain, Sept. 8, 2026. Photo: HOUSE OF COMMONS/Handout via REUTERS

Our British Foreign Secretary is certainly not camera shy. In fact, he has something of an obsession with posting toe-curling social media videos — so much so that one might mistake his taxpayer-funded trip to the UN General Assembly in New York for a wannabe influencer’s minibreak, booked on Avios saved up from years of shopping at Accessorize. His wooden personality, bodily awkwardness, and peculiar dental endowment combine to bring new levels of dweebishness to the poorly produced, formulaic Instagram reels he’s been pumping out since he took office. His poor man’s Robert Jenrick act is simply showing him up as the lightweight he is.

While other world leaders used the UN General Assembly this week to hold important meetings, deliver set-piece speeches, and put vital messages across to the world, Edward Miliband appears to have forced a spad [special adviser] to film him as he wanders around the UN building and through the streets of New York, awkwardly delivering lines fresh from ChatGPT. He’s giving more “Miss Alumunumu” vibes than Lord Palmerston – but she at least raised a few smiles flogging her Chinese-made aluminum capsule homes on TikTok. Not so Miliband.

In one carefully stage-managed collab with the internet video creator Feroz Khan, he declares himself “like the Marco Rubio of Great Britain.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Khan became internet-famous for a series of videos in which he spontaneously stops strangers in the street to chat. He faked this one with Miliband, presumably to help the guy build more international recognition. If the badly scripted conversation hadn’t given the game away, the very idea that anyone would stop a second-rate Mr. Bean tribute act on Fifth Avenue because he looked “well dressed” destroyed any scrap of believability. Asked what his job involves, he garbled, “I’m just trying to make the world a better place,” with all the flair of David Brent.

This Alan Partridge-meets-messiah-complex act might reveal why he’s doing such a bloody dreadful job only weeks into the new role. I always thought the UK Foreign Secretary’s job was to direct British foreign policy worldwide, negotiate treaties, and build alliances, all for the benefit of British interests. Miliband thinks he’s been appointed Mother Teresa.

Then there was his tone-deaf post of a photo of himself standing next to Zohran Mamdani. “Progressive parties are so much stronger when we learn from and stand with each other — from the cost of living to climate action to peace in Israel and Palestine,” he gushed in the caption. Zohran Mamdani is the New York mayor who used his first day in office to bin the city’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, who wouldn’t condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” who has called AIPAC “monsters,” and who took most of a day to condemn chants of “We support Hamas” outside a Queens synagogue. For nine months, New York’s rabbis, from Reform to Orthodox, have been telling him that his rhetoric is making Jews less safe. That is the man Britain’s Jewish Foreign Secretary chose to “learn from and stand with.”

In another video, he talks about how great it was that the Labour government “recognized” a Palestinian state. It’s not entirely clear what positive effect he thinks that had – but maybe it’s too early to tell. Surely his desperate Hail Mary, punishing Israel to keep alive the long-dead fantasy of a two-state solution, is proof enough that the so-called recognition did nothing to bring about Palestinian statehood. If it had really recognized a state, wouldn’t there already be two? The “solution” would be well and truly achieved, and peace would reign throughout the Middle East.

Then there’s the money. This week Miliband also unveiled more than £88 million of British taxpayers’ cash for Gaza and the “West Bank,” some of it for UNRWA – the agency whose staff the UN’s own investigators found may have taken part in the Oct. 7 massacre. He couldn’t resist using the announcement for another swipe at Israel, urging it to “listen to our Call to Action” and end its “unacceptable restrictions on Gaza.” One wonders whether Hamas, which has spent years diverting resources into tunnels and rockets, received a Call to Action too.

The point of all this cheap, transparent social media fodder is clear: Miliband is desperate for his potential voters to know that, while he is a “proud Jew,” he’s not afraid to upset, imperil, and abandon British Jews, and is positively excited by the prospect of destroying the safety and security of Israeli Jews. In fact, the sheer volume of these totally un-serious videos makes it clear that he really, really wants everyone to know this. None of this is accidental. Thankfully for both groups, he is also making sure Britain’s ability to do the latter shrinks by the day, as he makes our nation ever less relevant and influential in the messy business of containing the Palestinian and wider Iranian threat to Israel.

Miliband’s morality is also strikingly selective. Just over two weeks after solemnly invoking “death, destruction, and dehumanization on an appalling scale” in Gaza, he sat down in New York with Iran’s Abbas Araghchi, foreign minister of a regime whose forces massacred protesters in January — more than 36,500 in just two days, according to documents obtained by Iran International. To be fair, he reportedly used the meeting to warn Tehran against hostile activity on British soil. But don’t expect that one to get a slickly produced reel, or any talk of making the world a better place

With every video and photo condemning Israel for one thing or another, Miliban makes it clearer which voters Labour is most afraid of losing. And each one signals weakness, not the strength he thinks he’s projecting. Meanwhile, everyone who isn’t obsessed with Gaza and “recognizing Palestine” is left with an increasingly clear sense that he has little to add to our standing in the world. He would rather make online gestures and meaningless political moves over something he can’t control than roll up his sleeves and do the hard work of effective diplomacy, alliance-building, and forging strong trade partnerships.

Even on this issue of the Middle East, just think which side makes the more productive ally for Britain as it faces an increasingly uncertain and unsafe future: a democratic, confident, strong Israel, with its excellence in defense, technology, intelligence, and medicine — or the Palestinians, with their decades-long, stubborn commitment to violence, terrorism, and rejectionism. Britain’s interests are not served by alienating a strong and valuable ally for an imaginary, violent one with few shared values.

Since declaring himself a “proud Jew,” Miliband has wasted no time in proving how little that pride is worth to the community he claims. He is at least doing British Jews one service: More of us now understand that our legitimate, real concerns do not count when set against the objections of a small but angry and often violent mob of irrational actors. Their concerns — and votes — matter far more than ours to the government that determines our future.

British Jews are increasingly being convinced by our Foreign Secretary that this country is no longer a sensible place to bring up children, build businesses, or plan a safe and secure future. As a “proud Jew,” perhaps this is his contribution to helping Anglo-Jewry decide its path ahead.

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