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LONDON — The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, in its ornate King Charles II Street HQ, is bracing for a shift of priorities under Ed Miliband.
The new foreign secretary has embraced his post with vigor — a contrast to the more restrained style of his predecessor Yvette Cooper, who has moved to the health brief.
Miliband, a former Labour leader, has made clear that he sees the development side of the brief – and his focus on climate change – as key aspects of the job.
According to one person familiar with his accession talks with Andy Burnham, granted anonymity to speak freely, Miliband extracted a promise from the incoming prime minister that he would be able to pursue his determination to address the damage being done by climate change in his new job — and also foreground international development. That’s a topic sidelined by recent governments keen to cut spending to prioritize security and defense.
Miliband underlined this new focus by heading straight to Paris and Madrid for informal talks with French and Spanish counterparts Jean-Noël Barrot and José Manuel Albares this week — visiting the two countries at the heart of Europe’s wildfire disasters.
At a party hosted by the left-leaning IPPR think tank on Wednesday, Miliband told guests he wants climate and the environment to have a much higher profile in the role.
He also added, pointedly: “I am a politician not a chief diplomat.” It’s a sign he intends to conduct himself with a punchy style and pursue some distinct causes.
On that score, he has been seeking advice from a senior figure across the political aisle — Ed Llewelyn, a former key advisor to ex-Prime Minister David Cameron and previous head of the Foreign Office with extensive diplomatic experience, latterly as U.K. ambassador to Rome.
Miliband has indicated he might also soon meet Cameron himself for counsel on how to “hit the ground running,” as a person familiar with the background conversations told POLITICO. The pair used to clash furiously in the House of Commons when Miliband was opposition leader, but Cameron had a second act as foreign secretary in the dying days of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government.
In his comments at the IPPR, Miliband also reflected on what his grandfather, a Russian emigre to Poland, would have made of having “not one but two of his grandsons as British foreign secretary — I don’t think he would have believed it!”
His brother David, who held the role from 2007-2010, also held background talks with Andy Burnham on a prospective return from New York, where he has been president of the International Rescue Committee since 2013. But it was Ed who seized the crown this time.
Brexit shift
The other main shift in U.K. power play is the return of the post-Brexit U.K.-EU reconnection to the Foreign Office’s ambit. Miliband has accepted an invitation to attend the EU’s informal meeting of foreign affairs ministers in September, POLITICO London Playbook reported Wednesday.
Hamish Falconer arrives at Downing Street in London on July 20, 2026. | Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images
“Britain’s national economic and security interests are served by having a stronger relationship with our European allies,” Miliband said in a statement. “As foreign secretary, I will drive this agenda into the heart of our foreign policy — because that is how we defend Britain’s interests and values.”
The outward sign of that is the appointment of Hamish Falconer as Europe minister and simultaneously minister for inter-governmental relations in the U.K. He will attend Cabinet.
It’s a move that restores a linkage between the U.K.’s influential diplomatic service and Brexit negotiations, which frayed under previous arrangements. EU relations had been run out of the Cabinet Office — the government department tasked with supporting the prime minister.
In a speech at the same think-tank gathering last night, Falconer linked the task of European reconnection with Burnham’s determination to bring big-picture policy changes closer to Britons and their day-to-day concerns.
An experienced national security diplomat who worked on hostage releases in Afghanistan and on Gaza as a junior minister under Ker Starmer, Falconer is new to the Brussels-London beat.
But, to prepare for dealing with European tensions, Falconer has been reading the historian Brendan Sims’s study of shifting geopolitics over more than five centuries, “Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present.”
He’ll have his work cut out.
The U.K. and EU were due to hold a summit on 22 July to conclude negotiations on new trade and cooperation deals covering agri-foods, emissions and youth visas — but the meeting was postponed due to Keir Starmer’s resignation.
The gathering was also expected to be used as a springboard to announce further cooperation and rebooting the Brexit settlement.
New prime minister Andy Burnham has said he wants the meeting rescheduled for this year, though no date has yet been set.
Hear more on Ed Miliband’s Foreign Office reset on the Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast .
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