LONDON — For months, Ed Miliband has been Andy Burnham’s strongest and most helpful buddy in Westminster.
Now, as Burnham readies himself to enter Downing Avenue on Monday, what to do with Miliband may be his largest dilemma.
Greater than a decade after Miliband, then Labour chief, suffered a bruising defeat on the U.Okay.’s 2015 normal election, he has emerged as a kingmaker in Burnham’s rush to energy — and is now trying to commerce up from his present position as vitality secretary to one thing larger below Burnham.
Miliband has been talking to Burnham behind the scenes since early 2026, in line with two individuals acquainted with the relationship between the males, and publicly referred to as for Burnham’s return to Westminster as early as January. In April he was — in accordance to stories by no means denied by Miliband’s crew — the primary Cupboard minister privately to induce Prime Minister Keir Starmer to put out a timetable for departure.
He has been “the godfather of Andy’s return,” says John McTernan, a Miliband backer and former adviser to Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But few British politicians cut up opinion like Miliband, and his bid to be named chancellor impressed widespread pushback.
For a few of the U.Okay.’s most influential right-leaning newspapers, he’s the bogeyman of left-wing politics. His web zero undertaking and a ban on new oil and fuel exploration licenses within the North Sea have aggravated some unions. The Trump administration, filled with enthusiastic backers for extra fossil gasoline drilling, reportedly warned towards him changing into chancellor. (The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.)
Now — although individuals near Burnham insist no remaining resolution has been “communicated” — it’s Residence Secretary Shabana Mahmood who appears set to be named chancellor, rising from a crowded area solely after weeks of inner debate — and leaving open the query of the place Miliband will slot in Burnham’s new order.
The choices embrace changing Yvette Cooper as international secretary, in line with some stories. In that case, he already has some followers. Miliband could be “formidable” on the worldwide stage if handed the position, one senior diplomat from a G20 nation instructed POLITICO.
What’s consuming Ed?
The primary indicators that Miliband could have been fascinated with life after Keir Starmer got here by the banks of the River Mersey.
In September 2025, at Labour Social gathering Convention in Liverpool, the vitality secretary used appearances at fringe occasions to roam past his coverage temporary, brazenly criticizing some right-leaning facets of Starmer’s report.
“Ultimately,” he instructed an on-stage interviewer throughout convention week, “you’ve acquired to tackle the concept the issues … on this nation are all to do with immigration. … It’s simply improper. You’ve acquired to have an argument about what has actually gone improper with Britain. … We haven’t carried out it sufficient.” Six months earlier than, Starmer had earned the ire of left-leaning MPs and campaigners after warning that an unreformed immigration system might make the U.Okay. “an island of strangers.”
Burnham was additionally the speak of the Liverpool convention bars that September, following an interview with The New Statesman journal the place he successfully set out an alternate program for presidency, centered on devolution and better public management of utilities.
Burnham was “actually gifted” and “proper about reform of Westminster and reform of the political system,” Miliband mentioned warmly. He additionally staunchly backed Starmer: “Keir is my buddy, my longstanding buddy. I’m Keir’s man, I’m for Keir.”
However behind the scenes, the occasion was already shifting towards the prime minister.
“Because the again finish of final 12 months, most individuals within the Labour Social gathering, even Keir’s supporters, thought summer season 2026 could be the second when Keir would go,” mentioned one Miliband ally, like others on this article granted anonymity to talk frankly. “They might see the [heavy defeats in] native elections, Scotland and Wales coming months prematurely.”
When jostling started to switch Starmer, former Housing Secretary Angela Rayner was seen because the Labour left’s main decide for PM. However her management credentials have been dented by an investigation into her tax affairs, creating nervousness on the left about who their candidate may be.
Miliband himself, the identical ally mentioned, “got here to a really appropriate and fairly self-knowing conclusion about that — that he wasn’t the appropriate particular person.”
Even a few of his most ardent backers agreed. “It wouldn’t work,” mentioned one main net-zero campaigner at that 2025 Labour convention, citing Miliband’s media picture, which has by no means totally recovered from the 2015 defeat. “The backlash within the media, after which within the public, could be an excessive amount of.”
Requested about his management ambitions that convention week, Miliband mentioned “No” eight instances. “Undoubtedly not. I don’t know what number of instances I can say no.”
However his itch for a special type of authorities was plain to see.
“What’s the fucking level of politics?” he requested in the course of the interview cited above. “The purpose of politics is to exit and argue for issues. The purpose of politics is to exit with beliefs.”
The fighter
Miliband has all the time appreciated a row.
“It was a tricky but additionally a fairly ruthless resolution to determine to make the area doable for Andy,” mentioned the ally quoted above.
For him “every thing is a struggle,” agreed a senior authorities official who has labored with Miliband.
“I’m undecided the place that comes from. In all probability it was discovered on the Miliband household desk,” they added, a reference to Miliband’s mother and father: Ralph Miliband, a number one Marxist mental, and Marion Kozak, a socialist campaigner and Holocaust survivor who died, aged 91, this Might.
Miliband’s mother and father’ formative years, and the horrible struggling and loss endured particularly by Marion in Nazi-occupied Poland, provides him “a transparent sense of why politics issues, why it’s a must to struggle for concepts,” mentioned a second ally.
Miliband fought and received towards his older brother, David, who he defeated within the 2010 Labour management contest. David is additionally tipped for a possible job below Burnham. However for many Labour MPs, it’s the destiny of the youthful Miliband that issues.
Some inside Westminster nonetheless harbor deep reservations about Miliband, although.
“[Miliband] pretends that he doesn’t need to be prime minister, and it’s not all his ego. And he presents this picture of getting been there and carried out that as a celebration chief,” mentioned one former senior official. “There’s one thing fairly pretend about it. … He’s obsessive about the concept of Ed Miliband.”
However, argued Mcternan, Miliband is with the Burnham program: “Burnhamism, Manchesterism is an ideology that claims: The world’s altering, so we’re going to do some issues. Cut back inequality, decentralize, devolve, reindustrialize. … [Miliband] will get that we’re within the second quarter of the twenty-first century and we’d like new approaches.”
Spokespeople in each Miliband’s and Burnham’s groups declined to remark.
‘An excellent export product’
Whichever manner he turns, Burnham’s resolution is being watched around the globe.
Trump will not be a fan, however Miliband has “a formidable community of politicians, each within the U.Okay. and overseas,” famous the primary former official. (In February he secured a gathering in London to speak clear vitality with California governor and Democrat presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom.)
“He would make a formidable international secretary,” mentioned a senior diplomat from a G20 nation — a promotion which might enable Burnham to present Miliband extra prominence however not the complete energy and heft of the Treasury.
“You could possibly say [Miliband is] an excellent export product,” the senior diplomat continued. “The notion of him exterior the U.Okay. is very optimistic. He [is] very cosmopolitan, very cultivated. He treats nations with respect as equals, together with much less developed nations. He’s post-imperial — a really trendy politician with a way of intergenerational duty.”
As international secretary or as chancellor, that may very well be important subsequent 12 months, the diplomat famous, because the U.Okay. hosts G20 conferences, together with a gathering of finance ministers to assist form a world response to the Iran vitality shock and sclerotic world progress.
A visit to China to speak up clear vitality investments final March doesn’t hurt his case, both, some argue. Miliband had “constructed some relationships” with counterparts on the world superpower, mentioned Yixian Solar, a professor of sustainability governance on the College of Tub who not too long ago suggested the authorities on its engagement with China. His “dedication to strengthening cooperation between the 2 nations” would “undoubtedly assist the U.Okay.” if he had a much bigger job, Solar added.
However in the end, a third senior authorities official mentioned, whoever leads to the highest jobs could be sure by the identical political and financial gravity as his current predecessors, none of whom have discovered a manner to unravel Britain’s primary conundrum: Find out how to ship sustained progress whereas balancing the books.
“This authorities goes to have a really difficult early interval,” this former official mentioned.
“They’ve acquired plenty of large points to face within the autumn Finances [and] they’ve not had plenty of time to arrange or plan. … [whoever is chancellor] could be very constrained in fiscal coverage, on tax, on borrowing, on spending. The parameters for them shifting are fairly slim.”
Burnham’s issues are in the end larger and tougher to unravel even than personnel selections, they argued.
“Ed or not Ed … it will possibly get a bit overblown.”
Esther Webber contributed to this report.
