Miliband fury at slur

Updated 23.34 Tue Oct 16 2007

Keywords: Labour, David Milband

A senior Labour MP has compared the Government's stance on the new EU treaty with appeasement of the Nazis - to the fury of Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

The spat came as Mr Miliband, who is Jewish, endured a hostile two-hour grilling by a Commons committee at which he denied giving in to "bullying" by other countries.

The spat came as Mr Miliband, who is Jewish, endured a hostile two-hour grilling by a Commons committee at which he denied giving in to "bullying" by other countries

European Scrutiny Committee chairman Michael Connarty told him: "I have visions of peace in our time" - a reference to Neville Chamberlain's notorious 1938 agreement with Adolf Hitler.

The parallel had also been drawn this morning in a cartoon in The Sun newspaper, which has been campaigning for a referendum on the treaty.

He said he was "shocked" that the UK was defending parts of the treaty that appeared to hand more powers over the UK to the European Commission and Court of Justice.

A furious Mr Miliband said he had been "cut to my absolute quick" by the comparison.

"You are saying this is the equivalent of Neville Chamberlain coming back in the late 1930s from Munich claiming to have an agreement with Adolf Hitler. That is not worthy of any of you."

Mr Miliband is from an immigrant family of Polish Jews and his father fled the Holocaust from Belgium on one of the last ships across the Channel in 1940.

Mr Connarty said he was sorry if he had offended the minister's sensitivities, but added: "They are your sensitivities, not mine."

The row came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown prepares for an EU summit in Lisbon on Thursday which will finalise the text of the controversial replacement for the abandoned constitution.