Allies of President Donald Trump are voicing concerns over the appointment of Ed Miliband as the new British Foreign Secretary by Prime Minister Andy Burnham. This decision is stirring potential friction in the U.S.-U.K. relationship, largely because of Miliband’s past criticisms of Trump and his advocacy for net-zero energy initiatives.

Burnham announced Miliband’s new role on Monday, succeeding Yvette Cooper. This marks a significant comeback for Miliband, who previously led the Labour Party from 2010 until its 2015 election defeat. More recently, he served as the energy security and net-zero secretary under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

With his appointment, Miliband steps into Britain’s top diplomatic position, becoming the key counterpart to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This comes as Prime Minister Burnham seeks to maintain strong transatlantic ties. Following his ascension to office, Burnham conversed with Trump, emphasizing the significance of maintaining a robust relationship, as reported by Reuters.

According to The Daily Telegraph, officials from the Trump administration had advised Burnham’s team against granting a senior role to Miliband. Steve Bannon, a former chief strategist in the White House and close political associate of Trump, expressed to the newspaper that Miliband’s appointment is considered “very injurious” to the special U.S.-U.K. relationship. However, Bannon currently does not hold a formal position in the administration, and there’s been no public confirmation from the White House about such warnings being issued.

The London Times separately reported before the appointment that the administration had signaled opposition to Miliband and was even more concerned about the prospect of him becoming foreign secretary. That reporting was not attributed to a named administration official.

Miliband has previously condemned Trump in unusually personal terms.

During Trump’s first presidential campaign, Miliband described him as a “racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper.” The comment resurfaced after Trump won the 2024 election, when BBC Breakfast presenter Jon Kay questioned Miliband about how he would work with the incoming president.

“How are you going to build a relationship with someone you described in the past as a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper?” Kay asked during the Nov. 12, 2024, interview.

“I’ve said some things in the past,” Miliband responded. “My job now as a government minister is to work with people.”

The differences extend beyond Miliband’s rhetoric about Trump. As energy secretary, Miliband became the public face of the Labour government’s net-zero agenda and its opposition to issuing new licenses for North Sea oil and gas exploration. Trump and members of his administration have pushed Britain to increase domestic fossil-fuel production.

Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation and a former foreign policy aide to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told News Media Miliband’s appointment was a “disastrous” decision.

“I think the appointment of Ed Miliband as U.K. foreign secretary is disastrous for Britain,” Gardiner said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s a demonstration of a real lack of strategic thinking on the part of Andy Burnham.

“Ed Miliband is no friend of the United States,” Gardiner continued. “He has been an outspoken critic of President Trump. Miliband is also widely viewed by U.S. conservatives as the architect of the whole net-zero agenda, which is viewed as completely poisonous by the U.S. administration.”

Gardiner called the appointment a “very high-risk move” that “makes no sense.”

“Burnham is already off to a very bad start with this appointment,” he said. “I’m in no doubt there will be very significant tensions between President Trump and Prime Minister Burnham, and Miliband’s appointment is quite possibly the worst appointment that Burnham could make as foreign secretary.”

As he delivered his first remarks following the appointment, Miliband mentioned his family’s experience as Holocaust survivors.

“It’s the honor of my life, being asked by the prime minister to be the foreign secretary of our country,” Miliband said in a statement Tuesday. “My parents came here, Jewish refugees fleeing from the Nazis and, for them, Britain provided sanctuary and a beacon of hope in the fight against fascism.

“At a time when the values of democracy, the rule of law and freedom are under threat as never before, I will carry that spirit, their spirit, into my work as foreign secretary,” he said. “And now I’m going to go and get on with the task.”

Miliband also pledged to nurture Britain’s “strong, enduring and essential alliance” with the United States while deepening its strategic relationship with the European Union, according to the Financial Times.

His appointment has also raised concerns among some British Jewish and pro-Israel commentators.

Stephen Pollard, a former editor and current columnist for The Jewish Chronicle, argued in an opinion piece published Tuesday that Miliband’s record as Labour leader, including changes to party leadership rules that preceded Jeremy Corbyn’s rise, should concern British Jews and supporters of Israel. Pollard predicted that the Burnham government would pursue additional sanctions against Israel with the support of a Jewish foreign secretary.

The Burnham government had not announced additional sanctions against Israel as of Tuesday.

Conservative Member of Parliament Priti Patel separately criticized Burnham and Miliband over plans to proceed with the Chagos Islands agreement.

“Burnham and Miliband are wrong to press ahead with Labour’s appalling Chagos Surrender,” Patel wrote on X, arguing that the agreement would transfer British territory and cost taxpayers £35 billion (approximately $47 billion.)

“Once again, the same old Labour Party is undermining our national security and making Britain weaker on the international stage,” she added.

On Monday, President Donald Trump said he spoke with Burnham shortly after he took office, calling the conversation “very good.” Trump added that he and Burnham plan to meet in the “not too distant future” to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The White House, State Department, Miliband’s office and Burnham’s office did not immediately respond to News Media’s requests for comment.

Fox News’ Bonny Chu contributed to this article.

A scorching trend known as NILF summer is heating up for the American workforce.

In a stunning development, the number of adults classified as “not in the labor force” (NILF) soared to an unprecedented 105.8 million this June. This landmark statistic comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, shedding new light on the labor dynamics in the U.S.

The surge reflects a significant increase, with 832,000 individuals exiting the workforce in June alone. This swell has propelled the NILF count higher than what was observed during the peak of the Great Recession or even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s important to note that the NILF category is expansive, encompassing all Americans aged 16 and up who are not partaking in employment. This includes a wide array of individuals, from retirees to students.

Renowned labor economist Nicholas Eberstadt shared insights with The Post, highlighting an intriguing trend revealed by the data. A closer look uncovers a pronounced pattern of workforce withdrawal, especially among men.

“We’ve got a big problem…with the flight from work of prime-age men. And what’s been carrying the overall prime-age labor force participation has been the strong involvement of women, not men,” said Eberstadt, who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute.

Some 5.3 million workers — 5% of NILFs — have dropped out because they are discouraged or they’re not even bothering to look for work.

In addition, up to 22% of America’s NILF population are on long-term illness, disability, or other forms of benefits — representing more than 23.3 million Americans.

That startling figure is even higher than the percentage of Americans over 16 in full-time education, which is between 16 and 18%, or just over 19 million Americans.

By far the largest segment of the NILF population is retirees, who make up up to 50% of the total Americans not working. That’s not surprising, given the large cohort of Baby Boomers who are in their golden years.

Some 45% of NILFs are retirees who took standard retirement at the age of 65 or later. About 3-5% retired early.

While the absolute number of NILFs is at a record, the portion of Americans in the labor market hit 59% in June. That’s the lowest since September 2021, as the US emerged from the pandemic.

Before that, the portion of Americans in the labor market only dropped so low after the Great Recession.

Turn on, tune in, and drop out

Another factor for Eberstadt is the increasing number of dropouts — otherwise fit and healthy Americans opting not to work or try to work.

“Very roughly speaking, there are about 7 million of these men who are out of the labor force for the 25-to 54-year-olds,” said Eberstadt, whose 2016 book, “Men Without Work,” discussed the phenomenon of American men in their prime leaving the workforce.

However, the issue isn’t limited to men, he argues.

“There are about 3.5 million women who are kind of like the doppelgangers to this,” he said.

“There’s a growing group of dropout women who are neither working nor looking for work, have no children under the same roof with them, and no husband present.”

An American issue

While some of these factors could be put down to a rapidly aging population, Eberstadt pointed out that other societies that are becoming older aren’t seeing the same patterns of dropouts.

“If you look at what’s going on in Europe and Japan, which are both aging, shrinking societies, their workforce participation rates are going up now. So it’s not as if it’s impossible for aging, shrinking societies to mobilize more or involve more in the workforce,” he said.

“These are the healthiest, best educated Americans that have ever lived on the planet,” Eberstadt said.

He puts America’s growing NILF population down to a sprawling, disconnected archipelago of disability programs, which he argues offer many “blind spots” allowing people to fall through the cracks.

“The extent and the sprawl of participation or dependence upon different disability programs is a blind spot,” he said. “There’s no office in Washington, DC, big as it is, that can tell you how many Americans are receiving benefits from which disability programs and how many in collectivity and how many are receiving from multiple disability programs.”

No to UBI

With AI becoming increasingly integrated into “white-collar” industries, raising fears of mass job cuts, there have been calls to bring in a so-called universal basic income, or UBI — which pays people for merely existing.

However, Eberstadt warns that this would only worsen the number of dropouts in American society.

“Disruptive technologies in the past have been really great for people who have had skills,” he said. “Their productivity and incomes have gone up a lot.

“They’ve also displaced a lot of labor for people who don’t have skills. It looks like we’re going to be on that same track with AI, wherever it goes in the next 18 months or 10 years,” Eberstadt said.

“When Henry Ford came down the road, I don’t think that anybody had any idea what a combustion engine was going to do in mass-produced cars,” he said.

“But I would not like to see a guaranteed income, a UBI. Because I look at how men who are neither working nor looking for work say that they are spending their days now. And it is very depressing to see what they say they are doing. And I wouldn’t like us to be buying more of that,” he said.

“They are not engaged in civil society, not helping out around the house, not getting out of the house. Spending 2,000 hours a year in front of a screen. That’s a great warm-up act for becoming a statistic in deaths of despair,” he said.