Miliband's allegation on Cameron and migrant deaths is shameful, says No 10
|
Version 0 of 1. Ed Miliband has been accused by Downing Street of a “shameful and absolutely unacceptable” allegation that David Cameron is directly responsible for the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean due to the failure to formulate post-conflict plans in Libya. Liz Truss, the environment secretary, said the remarks were offensive and should be withdrawn, adding that this was not the way to conduct debate about foreign affairs. But Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said the row was manufactured by Downing Street and that Miliband was not planning to make such an allegation in a speech due to be delivered on Friday at the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House. Alexander insisted “the state of Libya is a failure for postwar conflict-planning for which the international community faces responsibility”. He said: “I don’t think anyone disputes that we are witnessing a situation where Libya is perilously close to becoming a completely failed state on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. That is not a matter of dispute; that is simply a matter of fact.” Related: Migrant deaths: EU leaders to triple funding of rescue operations The press briefing note for Miliband’s speech issued on Thursday night and reissued on Friday states: “He will say the refugee crisis and tragic scenes this week in the Mediterranean are in part a direct result of the failure of post-conflict planning for Libya.” Miliband will say: “In Libya Labour supported military action to avoid the slaughter Gaddafi threatened in Benghazi. But since the action, the failure of post-conflict planning has become obvious. David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya’s political culture and institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own. “What we have seen in Libya is that when tensions over power and resource began to emerge, they simply reinforced deep-seated ideological and ethnic fault lines in the country, meaning the hopes of the revolutionary uprisings quickly began to unravel. The tragedy is that this could have been anticipated. It should have been avoided. And Britain could have played its part in ensuring the international community stood by the people of Libya in practice rather than standing behind the unfounded hopes of potential progress only in principle.” Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Alexander said: “This manufactured row is designed to obscure the facts. The speech rightly highlights the loss of influence that David Cameron has overseen, and it also highlights the widely accepted failures in Libya where the international community rightly took action to prevent Benghazi being turned into a slaughterhouse and then has abjectly failed to engage in post-conflict planning. That is widely understood and recognised. “David Cameron waded in and then walked away. What we have seen since 2011 is five different Libyan governments. There was an opportunity with the establishment of the national transitional council to get around and provide better support. We are now in a situation where we have got two rival governments – one in Tripoli and one in Tobruk – and in the first democratic elections back in July 2012 the Islamists won only 19 out of 80 seats. So this was not inevitable. “The fundamental conceptual error by David Cameron in Libya was believing the political culture was akin to the political culture in Tunisia, one of the few bright stars in a dark sky after the Arab spring.” The entire apparatus of the state dissolved after the defeat of Gaddafi and a vacuum then developed which was filled by the militias now running the country, he said. He opposed lifting the arms embargo and said instead it was better to follow the UN’s six-point plan to set up an inclusive government in Libya. Cameron has appointed Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff to Tony Blair, as his special envoy in Libya. Powell is trying with the UN to bring the warring factions together. |