Ed Miliband has accused David
Cameron and other world leaders of failing to stand by Libya,
contributing in part to the crisis in the Mediterranean.
The
Labour leader said the UK had repeated the same mistakes "in
post-conflict planning" for Libya as were made in Iraq and the current
refugee situation should have been anticipated.
Conservatives denounced the remarks. Mr Cameron called them "ill-judged".
But Mr Miliband rejected claims he had politicised the issue as "nonsense".
Setting
out his foreign policy priorities in a speech in London, Mr Miliband
also pledged to rebuild the UK's international standing, claiming Mr
Cameron had presided over the "biggest loss of influence in a
generation" and placed the UK's future in the European Union in doubt.
The
BBC's assistant political editor Norman Smith said Labour were making
clear that they were not blaming the prime minister for the recent
deaths in the Mediterranean.
But Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said
any suggestion of "political point-scoring" on the back of a "total
human tragedy" was "pretty distasteful".
'Avoidable'
Mr
Miliband voted in favour of UN authorised air strikes against former
Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011, designed to stop the slaughter
of Libyan civilians in Benghazi.
The intervention led to the collapse of the Gaddafi regime but the country has descended into chaos since then.
An
estimated 800 people died when their boats sank off the Libyan coast on
Sunday while more than 35,000 people are thought to have crossed from
Africa to Europe this year, many of them being transited through Libya
and departing from there.
In a speech in London, the Labour leader suggested that the UK and the wider international community had let Libya down. Analysis by Peter Hunt, Labour campaign correspondent
It was meant to be about Ed Miliband's vision beyond the purely domestic.
It
became, in part, a row over whether or not he was accusing David
Cameron of being in some way culpable for the deaths of migrants in the
Mediterranean.
First there were the briefings and the counter-briefings by the unelected spin doctors.
Then
those seeking elected office weighed in, with Tory representatives
accusing Mr Miliband of being absolutely offensive; and their Labour
opponents insisting the other side was manufacturing a row.
And all this before the man who wants to govern had uttered a word.
And all because of 29 words in bold in a Labour briefing document.
For the Tories, it's been an opportunity, once again, to question whether Ed Miliband has what it takes to be prime minister.
For Labour, it's been a chance to try and portray their leader as a man who'll be at ease representing the UK abroad.
And
for the electorate, the speech and the spat have been a reminder that
the challenges of Europe, migrants and the so-called Islamic State await
whoever occupies No 10 once voters have delivered their verdict. "David
Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya was a country whose institutions
could be left to evolve and transform on their own," he said.
"The tragedy is that this could have been anticipated. It should have been avoided.
"And
Britain could have played its part in ensuring the international
community stood by the people of Libya in practice rather than standing
behind the unfounded hopes of potential progress only in principle."
A
briefing note released by Labour ahead of the speech sparked a row
after it suggested Mr Miliband would say the refugee crisis and tragic
scenes in the Mediterranean this week were in part a direct result of
the failure of post-conflict planning for Libya.
Asked after his speech whether he was directly pinning the blame on
Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband said the Conservatives were trying to "whip up a
storm" and his position was "absolutely clear".
"As far as what
is happening with the tragic scenes of people drowning in the
Mediterranean, that is the result of the people traffickers.
"But
nobody can disagree with the idea that the failure of post-conflict
planning has been responsible for some of the situation we see in Libya
and indeed people then fleeing."
'Direct blame'
He
was later asked during a BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat event why he had not
asked about Libya during Prime Minister's Questions for four years. Mr
Miliband said he had raised the issue in the Commons in February.
Speaking
on a campaign visit to Lincoln, Mr Cameron said leaders needed to
demonstrate "clarity, consistency and strength" in the face of a
"dangerous and uncertain world".
On Thursday, Mr Cameron pledged UK military assets to boost search
and rescue efforts in the Mediterranean after an emergency EU summit, in
which leaders agreed to treble funding for search and rescue efforts.
The
EU will also look at ways to capture and destroy smugglers' boats and
deploy immigration officers to non-EU countries, officials said.
The
boost in funding to some €120m (£86m) brings spending back up to about
the level of Mare Nostrum, an Italian-run search-and-rescue operation
that was cancelled last year.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 live, Mr Clegg said a considerable amount of
thought had gone into how to stabilise Libya after Gaddafi's fall,
contrasting this with the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq invasion for which
he said there had been "no planning at all".
But he added: "At the end of the day the future of Libya is in the hands of the Libyan people".
'No lecture'
Setting
out his foreign policy vision, Mr Miliband said he would take a
hard-headed approach to foreign intervention, saying it should only
happen as a "last resort" and with the support of regional allies.
"Saying something needs to be done is not a sufficient guide to foreign policy," he said.
However, he did not rule out extending sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, saying the EU had been too slow to act.
Former
foreign secretary William Hague said Mr Miliband "cannot come to
foreign policy with some ill-judged and opportunistic remarks after five
years of saying very little at all".
The Conservatives say they
will "ensure Britain is a major player on the world stage", exerting
diplomatic influence through its bilateral alliances and its membership
of the UN Security Council and the G7.
In other election news:
Mr Cameron says proposals for "English votes for English laws" would be in place for the first Budget of a Conservative government
The Liberal Democrats say either an "ideologically-driven single party government" or an "unstable" alliance would put the economy at risk
HSBC says it is considering whether to move its global headquarters out of London
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