Ed Miliband refuses to rule out return to front bench and admits he was ‘wrong’ about Corbyn

Former Labour leader says Jeremy Corbyn ‘proved me and others wrong’ with election performance

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband refuses to rule out a return to the party’s front bench (Getty)

Ed Miliband has said he would not rule out a return to Labour’s front bench and admitted he had been wrong to doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

The former leader said his tenure had helped to move the party away from the New Labour era and to provide a more left-wing policy platform for Mr Corbyn to build on.

He told an audience at Momentum’s World Transformed Festival during the Labour conference that Mr Corbyn had “proved me and others wrong” and he had made “the right decision” to keep his team in place after the snap election in June.

Asked about whether he was disappointed not to be promoted, Mr Miliband said: “If I’m honest, I’m divided about it because in a way I’ve got freedom now to do thinking without constraint.

“I absolutely don’t rule it out in the medium term but if you ask me now if I’m happy doing what I’m doing, the answer is yes.

“Post-2017, I think there’s a job for me to do not in the shadow cabinet, coming up with ideas.”

Mr Miliband, who led the party between 2010 and 2015, said he wished he had pushed harder for reform while he was in charge and said he had been preoccupied with trying to unify the party after coming out of Government.

He said: “I was constantly trying to navigate this question of unity and the sort of broach church of the party and moving on, and that was a hard dilemma.”

It comes as divisions over the party’s Brexit stance were laid bare when delegates decided against holding votes on motions about the EU withdrawal.

Pro-EU MPs expressed anger over the decision which has been seen as an attempt to avoid an embarrassing row over whether to back keeping the UK in the single market.