Ed Miliband to fight his brother David for the Labour leadership
Ed Miliband, brother of former foreign secretary David Miliband is to enter the race to be the next leader of the Labour party later today.
David Miliband has already declared that he will stand to be Labour leader, meaning the two brothers will go head to head to lead Britain’s main opposition party.
Asked earlier in the week about the prospect of the siblings fighting each other David Miliband said: “We have talked very frankly and openly to each other because we love each other as brothers.”
“Brotherly love will survive because brotherly love is more important than politics.”
Ed Miliband who until this week was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is due to give a speech at the Fabian Society’s ‘Next Left’ conference and is expected to use it to announce his candidacy.
The news first broke on Twitter when Labour member Mary Wimbury tweeted: “At Doncaster north labour party. Delighted that Ed Miliband has told party members he is going to stand for party leader.”
LabourList reports that Ed Miliband told his local party: “I am telling you first that I am standing for the leadership. I’ve thought long and hard about it.
“My brother and I agree that the party needs the widest possible choice. The party has lost touch with our voters and we have lost our radical edge. We must reconnect and regain our sense of idealism.”
“This contest must also be about the party valuing our members more, rooting our party in our communities and turning our values into action.”
Ed Miliband has a good gay rights voting record, having voted in favour of the Equalities Act and against an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have denied lesbian couples access to IVF. Having only been elected in 2005, he was not in Parliament for the votes on an equal age of consent, civil partnerships or gender recognition.
His brother David has a similarly strong LGBT voting record and has written on the struggle for LGBT rights abroad for PinkNews twice (here and here)
In our most recent political poll, David Miliband was the most popular choice of the LGBT community for leader with 31 per cent compared to 7 per cent for Ed Miliband although the poll included politicians that have since declared that they will not be standing.
