Foreign Secretary (2007–2010)
On 28 June 2007, the day after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Miliband was appointed Foreign Secretary. He was Britain's third youngest Foreign Secretary and the youngest person to be appointed to the post since David Owen (in office 21 February 1977 – 4 May 1979). Anthony Eden had assumed office at the age of 37 in 1935. David's younger brother, the economist Ed Miliband, was the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, making them the first siblings to serve together in Cabinet since Edward, Lord Stanley, and his brother Oliver in 1938.
Miliband's first Foreign Office questions session as Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons was on 3 July 2007.
On the morning of 13 December 2007, Miliband stood in for Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the official signing ceremony in Lisbon of the EU Reform Treaty, which was attended by all other European heads of government. Brown was otherwise engaged at the House of Commons, appearing before the Liaison Committee, and travelled to Portugal to sign the treaty in the afternoon. He was left on his own again by the Prime Minister to speak in favour of the European Union (Amendment) Bill in the House on 21 January 2008.
On 21 February 2008, Miliband admitted (despite previous government denials) that two U.S. extraordinary rendition flights had stopped on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory, in 2002. When questioned as to whether the government had deliberately misled the public over rendition, Miliband apologised and stated that the government had "made a mistake".
On 5 February 2009, Miliband made a statement to the House of Commons concerning Guantanamo Bay detainee and former British resident Binyam Mohamed. A week later Mohamed's American lawyer Yvonne Bradley flew to Britain to urge the Foreign Office to press harder for his release. On 23 February 2009, Benyam Mohammed returned to Britain and was granted temporary residence. However, in July 2010, Clive Stafford Smith accused former Foreign Secretary David Miliband of "fighting tooth and nail" to prevent the release of vital documents during the Binyam Mohamed case.
Following his trip to India in 2008 in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, Miliband wrote in an article that "resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders". This sparked an angry response from the Indian government, whose long standing policy had been not to accept any third party involvement in the dispute over Kashmir. An Indian analyst suggested that his tone implied that India must shoulder some of the responsibility because of its policies in Kashmir. Some reports also said that Miliband's tone towards the Indian Prime Minister and the Finance Minister had been aggressive, and that he had been excused for being a "young man".
During the latter stages of the Sri Lankan Army's 2008–09 offensive against the LTTE, Miliband travelled to Sri Lanka to press the government to call a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers, citing concerns for civilians caught in the crossfire. Miliband's visit was met with protests by Sri Lankan nationalists, who accused Miliband of attempting to save the lives of Tamil Tiger militants. During the victory celebrations that took place a few weeks later, a burning effigy of Miliband was reported to have been tossed over the gate of the British High Commission in Colombo.
In December 2010 articles published in the British newspapers The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph highlighted that Miliband was spending two-thirds of his time focusing on the Sri Lankan civil war, largely due to domestic political calculations. The source of the articles was a leaked US diplomatic cable. The articles quoted Tim Waite, a Foreign Office official as saying that much of [Her Majesty's government] and ministerial attention to Sri Lanka is due to the "very vocal" Tamil diaspora in the UK, numbering over 300,000, who had been protesting in front of Parliament since 6 April. According to Wikileaks, this was reported by Richard Mills a United States Embassy worker in UK.
Richard Mills further wrote on his cable, saying thatwith UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 per cent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka.
In August 2009, Miliband was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Great Lives programme, choosing South African Communist Party leader and anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo. Miliband stated during the programme, in a response to a question about terrorism, that "yes, there are circumstances in which it is justifiable and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective, but it is never effective on its own". These comments were criticised by Menzies Campbell and William Hague.
The Treaty of Lisbon created the post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union, a post commonly known as the European Foreign Minister. In autumn 2009, as the treaty came close to coming into force, Miliband was named as being under consideration for the post as EU officials regarded him as "ideal material". Miliband publicly insisted that he was not available to fill the post, as he was committed to remaining in the British cabinet. Baroness Ashton, a fellow British Labour politician and then European Commissioner for Trade, was ultimately appointed to the post instead.
On 23 March 2010, the UK expelled an Israeli diplomat owing to claims that an embassy official from that country forged passports, relating to the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, and Miliband gave a public warning against travel to Israel because of identity theft concerns.
