Andy Burnham set to face brutal grilling as migration row explodes

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said he “regrets” Israel’s response to his announcement on sanctions, but is “proud” of his actions.

When asked for his response to the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem, the Foreign Secretary told Sky News: “I regret what the Israeli government has announced, but I’m proud of what we did yesterday and it was the right thing to do.”

He said: “It will be damaging, that’s true, but we weighed up the costs and the benefits in advance of this.

“And we did something very important. We talked to the representatives of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian prime minister, the representative here, and they both said to us with a very clear voice, you need to act from our point of view.”

He added: “I would prefer that Israel hadn’t announced what it did, but overall, I strongly believe that what we did, along with other international allies, was absolutely the right thing to do.”