We’re all living in the Miliverse

It was a Labour MP who first used the phrase to me: the Miliverse. He was worrying, before PMQs, about a world where Ed Miliband gets a promotion to Downing Street – either as Chancellor or, even, as Prime Minister.

If he was worried then, he’ll have been even more worried after PMQs. Because yesterday, in the House of Commons chamber, Sir Keir Starmer seemed not just comfortable with the idea that he is a member of Miliband’s government – he was almost eager to admit it.

Under questioning from Kemi Badenoch over the decision not to issue new licences for North Sea oil and gas drilling, Starmer slipped into full legal mode. He was at pains to clarify that the decision over the Jackdaw and Rosebank oilfields rested not with him but with the Secretary of State for Energy. Legally, it was Miliband’s call. Badenoch pounced. “He is the Prime Minister!” she told the chamber, deriding Starmer’s retreat into proceduralism.

The Prime Minister was, in effect, publicly conceding what one shadow cabinet minister put to me: that Miliband is “the real prime minister”. Another shadow cabinet minister joked: “It isn’t something we didn’t already know.”

But it is worth pausing on what that actually tells us about Starmer, because the Miliband story is, at its core, a Starmer story. Miliband’s influence over this government is not merely a function of his own ideological energy, though that is clearly considerable. It is also a function of the vacuum at the very top.

This is the context in which Miliband has thrived. When the man at the top is reluctant to own his government’s most politically contentious decisions – whether that’s the North Sea, net zero, or the broader direction of economic policy – someone else will own them instead. His Labour manifesto read: “We will not issue new licences to explore new fields because they will not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure, and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis.” That is clearly what they truly believe, so why won’t Starmer say it rather than hide behind legal process? Miliband is happily continuing the message of the manifesto, and filling the vacuum at the top while doing it.

As I have written before, Miliband’s influence on this Labour government has been perfectly clear: “The push towards ever more stringent net-zero obligations continues apace, even when the immediate effect is to increase costs for British taxpayers and businesses.” The Spectator’s Tim Shipman even reported that it was Miliband who commanded the majority around the National Security Council table on any involvement in Iran, with Starmer taking direction rather than giving it.

In a profile with the New Statesman, Miliband himself was candid about the scope of what he is trying to achieve. “We are charting a course to a different economic settlement,” he said. “I talked about it as leader and didn’t get to implement it.” He is implementing it now.

And there is the question of what comes next. Nigel Farage, of all people, has reportedly told friends he expects Miliband to be Prime Minister by 2027. That prediction may flatter his instinct for provocation, but it is not entirely absurd with Starmer’s leadership on the rocks.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister yet again tried to protect himself by hiding behind Miliband, but only revealed more about his lack of leadership in the process. 

The Labour MP fretting in the corridors before PMQs, I suspect, finds that prospect deeply worrying – Ed Miliband’s world is not one he wants to inhabit. But without any voters say, the Miliverse seems to be ever expanding.