David Miliband steps aside ' to let Ed lead Labour'

Labour leader Ed Miliband left the door open for his elder brother David to return to the party’s front line today after the former foreign secretary dramatically announced he was quitting the shadow cabinet.

David said he was returning to the backbenches in order to avoid becoming a “distraction” to his brother’s effort to provide Labour with a fresh start.

He added it would also allow him to “recharge my political and intellectual batteries” and spend more time with his family.

The widely-expected announcement came four days after he lost out to Ed in the knife-edge ballot for the Labour leadership, and was hailed by his brother as a “thoughtful and gracious” move.

Speaking at the Labour conference in Manchester, Ed Miliband said: “He is my brother and I am very clear that, as leader of this party, my door is always open for him to serve in the future, either in opposition or back in government.”

David – who spent the day with his family at his north London home – said he would remain MP for South Shields and would devote himself to developing the network of community organisers he set up as part of his leadership campaign.

In a letter to the chairman of his constituency party, he said he was confident that stepping back from the frontline was “the right decision for Ed, for the party and for me and the family”.

He made clear he was not ruling out an eventual return to the front bench but refused to be drawn on whether his brother had privately urged him to stay.

Ed described him as “a massive talent” and added: “We would have been a stronger team with him in it, but I think he is right to have made the decision he did.”

David’s departure from Labour’s top team came as the deadline passed for nominations to the shadow cabinet.

Some 49 Labour MPs – ranging from big beasts like Alan Johnson, Ed Balls and Peter Hain to relatively unknown backbenchers – are standing for 19 elected positions in a ballot of MPs which concludes on October 7.

In a sign of the new leader taking control of his party, Rosie Winterton was elected unopposed as opposition chief whip after Ed Miliband asked incumbent Nick Brown – a close ally of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown – not to stand.

Allies of David Miliband praised his decision to quit the front benches.

Mr Johnson said it would make it easier for Ed to “flourish as leader” by avoiding “constant scrutiny of their relationship”.

Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott said the party owed David “an enormous debt of gratitude”.

And fellow-Blairite Tessa Jowell said David had “done the right thing for himself, and for his family, and he has definitely done the right thing for the party”.

She added: “This has now given his brother Ed the space to run the party.”

But Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi said that the fact that a leading architect of New Labour did not want to serve in the shadow cabinet “speaks volumes about the direction in which the new leader is taking Labour”.

“After being elected by the unions, this is further evidence that Ed Miliband is vacating the centre ground of British politics,” she said.

Speculation over David’s future overshadowed Labour’s annual conference, with expectations growing as the days went by that he would decline to serve in his brother’s top team.

Much of the press coverage of Ed’s crucial first leader’s speech yesterday was dominated by a critical comment from David picked up by a TV microphone.

In his letter today, David made clear his concern that if he remained in the shadow cabinet, Labour’s efforts to supplant the coalition Government would be seen through the prism of his personal relationship with his brother.

“The party needs a fresh start from its new leader, and I think that is more likely to be achieved if I make a fresh start,” he said.

“This is now Ed’s party to lead and he needs to be able to do so as free as possible from distraction.

“Any new leader needs time and space to set his or her own direction, priorities and policies. I believe this will be harder if there is constant comparison with my comments and position as a member of the shadow cabinet.

“This is because of the simple fact that Ed is my brother who has just defeated me for the leadership. I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where there is none and splits where they don’t exist, all to the detriment of the party’s cause.

“Ed needs a free hand but also an open field.”

Mr Miliband said he had spent 16 years “in or around the top of politics” since joining Tony Blair’s team in opposition in 1994 and wanted to “recharge my political and intellectual batteries to be of greater service to the party and the country”.

He indicated he would pursue interests in education, the environment and foreign policy and devote himself to “understanding better the new challenges and new ideas that will dominate the next couple of decades, and figuring out how to put our values into practice”.

He said that he wanted to give more time to his sons Isaac, five, and Jacob, two, and his wife Louise Shackleton.

“I have essentially been a Cabinet minister for the whole of Isaac and Jacob’s lives,” he wrote.

“That is tough for me and tough for them. One happy consequence of the leadership election will be more time with Louise and the boys.”