There will be blood: drilling down into Labour’s civil war

The irony is that Rachel Reeves voted for Ed Miliband to be Labour leader in 2010.

- JOHN RENTOUL

She was a newly elected MP then, although that is no excuse: if she and five other MPs had voted the right way (for his brother, David), the history of the 2015 election and of Britain’s membership of the EU might have been different. Well, she knows better now. She drew the right lesson from Miliband’s leadership - “don’t do that again” - whereas he drew the wrong one - “I should have been bolder”.

She prevailed over Miliband to get rid of the £28bn Green Prosperity Plan, which was Labour’s policy until five months before the last election, but a similar disagreement continues, and has been made more intense by the Iran conflict.

She takes the commonsense view, backed by public opinion, that as long as we need gas it is better to get it from the British sector of the North Sea, employing British workers and paying British taxes, than importing it. Miliband takes the Green fundamentalist view that we should drill less in British waters even if that means more imports.

As with the Green Prosperity Plan, this issue is taking a long time to resolve, partly because Keir Starmer won't decide. But there is a more urgent problem heading this way, which is likely to divide Reeves and Miliband further.