David Miliband has described himself in an interview as “an ex-politician”, placing renewed doubt on whether the former Labour cabinet ministerhas any ambition to return to parliament.
However, he declined to completely rule out coming back to politics, saying: “It’s better not to press the rewind button and think backwards. It’s better to take life one step at a time.”
Miliband left parliament in 2013 to head the New York-based International Rescue Committee after losing out to his brother, Ed, in the Labour leadership contest.
Speaking to Spear’s, a magazine targeted at very rich people, Miliband initially joked when asked whether he might return: “Come back to Britain, come back to politics … I’d tire much more of people saying: ‘Thank god you’ve gone away and please stay.’”
Asked if he would call himself a retired politician, Miliband replied: “An ex-politician.”
There has been speculation that Miliband might seek to return to Britain and parliament in the event of Jeremy Corbyn stepping down as Labour leader, potentially in the wake of June’s election.
However, Miliband has consistently refused to comment on the idea, while insisting he and his family enjoy their life in New York.
Elsewhere in the interview, the former foreign secretary warned against the perils of populism and of the benefits of globalisation being unequally distributed. He praised his former boss Tony Blair for arguing against the government’s Brexit plans.
“I would say is that those of us who supported staying shouldn’t suddenly accept that because we lost the referendum, we lost the argument,” he said. “We can continue to believe what we believe, until the facts go the other way.”
Miliband said Blair had “made some really important points” on EU departure. “While the government negotiates, the rest of us can’t just suspend thought. We’re allowed to have views.
“I’ve always not really understood, to be absolutely honest, why the current government didn’t think it would be good to have parliament more involved.”
More widely, Miliband said he feared the consequences of what he described as a disconnect between economics and politics, and of a rise in protectionism.
“We’ve seen from the 30s the dangers when nations turn inwards, when trade is blocked, and it must be a real danger that the first half of the 21st century becomes a deglobalisation age,” he said.
“The economics says global trade is good; the politics is very difficult. The economics is absolutely clear, migration is good; the politics is bad. The economics is clear that we should be investing more in the young, but the politics is about paying a debt to the old.”
Miliband noted that in last year’s US presidential election, the areas won by Donald Trump represented just 36% of the country’s economic output. “The economic power was not on the president’s side. That’s interesting evidence of economics and politics pulling in opposite directions.”
