(JTA) — Britain’s Labor Party leader Ed Miliband defended his late father against a newspaper’s claim that he was an unpatriotic Jewish Marxist who “hated Britain.”
The Daily Mail, in an article published Saturday under the headline “The Man Who Hated Britain,” reported that Ralph Miliband, a Jewish refugee from Belgium who fled to Britain before World War II, hated Britain and its establishment.
Ralph Miliband fought for Britain against the Nazis. He died in 1994.
The article questioned whether the elder Miliband’s Marxist views may have influenced Ed and his brother, David, a former British foreign secretary.
Ed Miliband published a personal right of reply on Tuesday.
“It’s part of our job description as politicians to be criticized and attacked by newspapers, including the Daily Mail. It comes with the territory,” he wrote. “But my Dad is a different matter. I loved him and he loved Britain. And there is no credible argument in the article or evidence from his life which can remotely justify the lurid headline and its accompanying claim that it would ‘disturb everyone who loves this country.’ ”
The Daily Mail published an editorial on Tuesday refusing to apologize for the original article and reasserting what it called Ralph Miliband’s “evil legacy.” It said it stood by “every word” of the story.
The article comes amid a political battle over media regulation.
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